What You Can to Survive
by Obsidian Skin
Summary: "No!" Peter cried, cuffed hands flying up to stop him, but it was too late. The man seized a handful of the mask and pulled it off with one sharp tug. "Look at you. I don't even know who you are." He flung the mask on the ground. "You're a nobody. No one will be looking for you, Spider-Man," he spat. And he was right. Who would save a nobody?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **New story! I have a vague idea of where this is going to go, but nothing's certain yet.

**WARNING**: Rating may go up if I continue the story.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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"How's it in SoCal?" Peter fired another web at an adjacent building as he reached the end of his last swing.

_"__It's kinda cold actually." _Came May's slightly resentful voice from the other end of the connection. _"I'm glad I thought to bring a few cardigans for the weekend," _she mused. _"Did you get all your homework done?"_

Peter huffed slightly as he landed in a crouch on the lip of another building's roof. Carefully, he spun around until he was facing outwards towards the streets of the city; a perfect vantage point.

"May, we've already talked about this," he said, eyes scanning the dark streets below. "I did all my homework on Thursday before you left and we didn't have school today because of teacher conferences. I don't have any anything due."

_"__Alright, just checking. Did you eat today?"_

Peter nodded absentmindedly as he squinted down at a man with bright green hair walking way too quickly, looking way too nervous, at way too late o'clock.

"Uh yeah, yeah I ate."

_"__What did you have?"_

"Some… banana." Peter began to scale down the side of the building face first.

_"_Some_ banana? Sure. What else did you have?"_

Peter changed directions, scampering sideways instead of downwards. The guy was moving fast. Once Peter reached the edge of the building, he coiled his muscles and leapt onto the brick walls of the next structure, making sure to stay above the man. "A- uh- a sandwich."

_"__And what was on that sandwich, Peter?" _There was smirk in May's voice now.

The teen was too distracted to give his full attention to the conversation anymore. "Um…"

"Lettuce?" Karen supplied helpfully in his ear.

"Lettuce!" Peter blurted to his aunt, keeping his eyes on the quickly moving target.

"Mustard?" Karen continued.

"Mustard." The man had turned into an alley way, long-legged strides carrying him quickly into the shadows.

_"__Mhmm?"_

"Pickles?"

"Pickles," Peter whispered, advancing as quickly as he could in the dim lighting without charging blindly into the unknown.

"Sauerkraut?"

"Sauerkra– sauerkraut? Really?" Peter grimaced as May's laugh bubbled across the line.

_"__Who're you talking to, Pete?" _She chuckled.

"It's just Karen. Look, May, I'll call you later." They exchanged their goodbyes over the phone and May's caller ID slipped of Peter's display. It was only once they'd stopped conversing that Peter realized he'd lost sight of the green-haired man.

He mumbled a curse under his breath. "Karen, where'd he go?"

The AI was quick to respond. "I'm not sure. This alleyway branches off in several directions and I am detecting multiple heat signatures. Any one of them could your target. Would you like me to switch to thermal cameras?"

A sigh escaped unbidden from Peter's lips. "No, that's okay. Thanks, though."

Damn it. Who knows what crime that guy was going to commit? Or had already committed? And Spider-Man had just let him get away. Great.

Peter was just about to shoot a web to carry him up out of the alley when he heard a timid voice call out.

"Sp-Spider-Man?"

He spun on his heel and saw a little boy standing five feet away from him, huddled into a doorframe.

"Hey," Peter said softly as the boy stepped out into the open space, hands gripping the edge of his jacket. "Are you okay?"

The little boy shook his head quickly, bright blonde hair swaying across his forehead. "I- I'm lost," he sniffed, almond-shaped green eyes filling with tears. "I can't find my mom!" He threw his hands over his eyes as the tears streamed harder, a sob wrenching from his throat.

Peter rushed over and dropped into a crouch in front of the bawling boy. The kid's cries tore at his heart; the boy couldn't have been more than six or seven. Why would his parents even have him out this late?

"Hey hey hey, it's gonna be okay! Don't cry," he pleaded, gently taking hold of the boy's wrists and tugging them down from his face. "I'm going to help you find your mom, okay?" He said, squeezing the boy's hands.

A few stray tears leaked out of the boy's eyes, but he was no longer sobbing. He hiccuped slightly as he stared into the white lenses of Peter's mask. "Pinky promise?" He gasped, extending the digit in front of the masked hero's face.

Peter gave a small smile, even though the boy couldn't see it. "Yeah, I pinky promise." He hooked his gloved finger around the boy's smaller one and shook it slightly, eliciting a giggle from the child. "Can you tell me your name?"

"George," the boy sniffed. "George Towns."

"Hi, George Towns. I'm Spider-Man." A photograph of George slid onto Peter's HUD along with a phone number and a home address. Thank you, Karen.

"What do you say we get you back home?" At George's nod, Peter offered the boy a piggy-back ride, knowing it would faster if he simply carried the kid home. George didn't need to be asked twice. He climbed onto the hero's back, arms and legs wrapping around the teen securely.

"Ready?" Peter asked, rising back up to his full height and linking his arms beneath the child on his back.

"Um…Mr. Spider-Man?" George said, voice suddenly tainted with… was that regret? "I'm really sorry. I didn't want to do it."

"George, what are you talking abou–" Peter's words were cut off with a gasp as something sharp was suddenly plunged into the side of his neck. His breath stuttered as the world around him almost instantaneously began to blur and shift.

His legs felt like jelly underneath him and his knees no longer wanted to support his weight. Peter grunted as his kneecaps smashed into the stone of alley, bringing his hands in front of him to prevent himself from faceplanting entirely onto the ground.

George slid off his back and retreated a few steps, all the while whimpering, "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry."

On all fours, Peter looked back the crying child, or rather he tried to. Black spots were starting to swarm across his vision, making it difficult to see anything in the already darkened backstreet.

"What did you do?" He whispered, arms finally giving out and sending him crashing to the ground, face first.

"Peter, you've been drugged. Try to stay awake."

That was Karen, Peter's mind vaguely registered.

"I'm going to send out a distress signal to–"

The display went dark. That never happened. Karen was always there. Oh, this was bad.

"Karen?" Peter slurred, fighting to keep his eyelids from slipping shut. "Karen?" He tried again, louder this time.

Crap, crap, crap.

A pair of pristine blue and yellow sneakers stepped into Peter's line of sight. "Oh, well done, George," a gleeful voice commented from above. "This is… this is truly wonderful. You're eatin' good tonight."

The owner of the sneakers crouched down and ducked his head to stare into the eyes of Peter's mask. "Hello, Spider-Man," he whispered delightedly, neon green-hair catching the light of the streetlamp. "Are you ready to have some fun?"

It was the last thing Peter heard before he lost the battle with unconsciousness and the darkness washed over him completely.

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Thanks for reading! Let me know if you think it's worth continuing. Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Here's the next chapter! Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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The first thing Peter became aware of when he woke was the faint smell of mildew and the acrid scent of ammonia. He groaned softly at the dull throbbing in his head and slowly blinked open his eyes.

He appeared to be in a cell of some sort. The walls and floor were both made of unembellished grey cement. The only things that broke the monotony of the room were the small toilet on the other side of the room with a little privacy shield, the ratty cot on the floor on which Peter sat, and the minuscule security camera that was directed right at his bed.

The entire front wall of the cell was made of thick iron bars, stretching from floor to ceiling, allowing Peter to see out into the hallway. There were two other cells a little ways either direction from Peter's, but he couldn't see if anyone was inside from his position on the cot.

Voices floated down the corridor, some laughing, some crying, one yelling. Peter felt his heartbeat began to pick up.

Where the hell was he?

With a grunt, he pushed himself up off the bed, the effects of whatever George had injected him with lingering a little. His sudden movement caused a weight to shift off his lap and drop to his sides with an unsettling clanging sound.

He lifted his wrists and found them both encircled by heavy metal cuffs, the chains feeding back into the wall behind him. Peter inhaled deeply, grabbed a handful of the links, and gave a sharp tug. Neither budged. He pulled again, harder this time. Again, the metal didn't move.

The teen released a shaky breath and let his hands fall back to his sides, chains rattling as they dropped. He shook his head and mentally filed that away under things to figure out later.

As he stepped towards the door, a thought struck him. He quickly glanced back down at his hands. His hands that were still gloved in red.

He still had the suit.

Upon closer inspection of his wrists, he could see that his web shooters had been pried off. But no matter, _he still had the suit_.

Peter's hands flew up to his face and he could've laughed outright as he felt the fabric still covering his visage. How dumb were these people?

Not only had they left on his mask so his identity was still a secret, but right before he'd been taken, Karen had sent out a distress signal to someone. Who she'd sent it to, Peter didn't know, but he could probably guess.

God, his captors were going to feel so dumb when Tony Stark showed up and kicked their asses.

But wait a second.

Something about that wasn't right.

Had Karen actually sent the distress signal? She'd never actually finished her statement. She said that she was _going_ to do it, but she didn't say that she _had_ done it.

Peter shook his head slightly. No. Karen had sent it. Mr. Stark would come looking for him.

He jolted slightly as the length of his chains attached to his arms ran out, only allowing him to go halfway to the door. He leaned his weight onto the front of his toes, straining to see out into the hallway. Unfortunately, this vantage point wasn't much better than the last.

"Karen?" He whispered, hoping that, by some miracle, his AI had returned. What could have killed his suit like that? Mr. Stark's technology was some of the best stuff out there and for it to be taken down so easily in some back alley where Peter had been attacked by a literally six year was kinda scary to think about.

Silence met his timorous call. Peter signed softly and distributed his weight evenly on his feet again, relieving the pressure on his shoulders and wrists.

He made his way back over the cot and dropped down onto it, facing the door. There wasn't anything else to do but wait.

He didn't have to wait long.

Not five minutes after he sat down, three figures appeared at the door to his cell. Two of the faces are unfamiliar, but the one in the front had Peter jumping to his feet and pointing an accusing finger at the man's chest.

"You!" He shouts, astonishment leaking into his voice as the man unlocks the door.

It was the green-haired man from the street that Peter had been following, that one that had seemingly melted into the shadows of the alleyway. He grinned toothily as he swung open the heavy door, shoving his hands in his pockets as he swaggered in.

The man's spiky green hair was gelled to attention over a set of thick, dark eyebrows, one of which was set with a gleaming silver ring. He swiped a finger under his nose quickly and Peter saw that the man's entire right arm was covered in colorful tattoos. Of what, the teen couldn't quite make out.

He was dressed plainly: jeans, a t-shirt, and pair of blue and yellow sneakers.

"Me," said Greenie, as Peter had mentally dubbed him. "You know, you woke up a lot quicker than we was expecting," he said in a Southern twang, quirking an eyebrow at Peter, toothy grin still firmly in place.

"Yeah well, what'd you expect? You guys gave me the crappiest mattress on the face of the planet. Would you sleep for a long time if you had that?" Peter bit out.

Greenie's lips closed around his teeth, but his smile didn't disappear. "Let me introduce you to my boys," he said with a grand sweep of his arm at the two men standing behind him. "That's Cabbage."

He pointed at a man about three times Peter's size with a body built like a tank and about twelve face tattoos. "We call him Cabbage because…well it doesn't really matter why," Greenie said with a wave of his hand. "Anyways, that's Jason–" He pointed at the second guy who Peter assumed had been abducted from an insurance firm somewhere. He looked like your average cookie cutter dad who worked a 9-5 and drank a beer in front of the tv every night.

"We call him Jason cause that's his name." Greenie clapped his hands together. "Now!"

Peter flinched slightly at the sudden raised tone and switched his gaze back to the man who was talking.

"What about you, little Spider?" Greenie said, stuffing his hands back in his pockets. "What's your name?"

Peter swallowed heavily. "What do you want?" He asked, evading the question.

Greenie pursed his lips, cocking his head slightly. "What do I want? What do I want? What do I want?" He muttered quickly. "What do we want, boys?" He twisted his torso slightly to ask the two men standing behind him.

"We want to win." It was Cabbage who spoke, his voice deep and flat.

The leader of the group smiled and nodded at the statement. "I agree. We want to win," he repeated, turning back to face the teenager. "Ever heard of The Pitbulls, Spidey?"

Peter hesitated before he shook his head slowly.

"No? 'Kay, well originally The Pitbulls were a wrestling team. Long story short: they kinda sucked. So when they disbanded, the name was up for grabs. The Pitbulls is the name of our team now."

"So…what? You're a wrestling team? What's that got to do with me?" Peter asked, confusion scrawled across his face underneath the mask.

"Hey hey!" Greenie brandished a finger at Peter. "Let me finish." When Peter stayed silent, the man continued. "Mattermind is the… underground wrestling ring, if you will. All of the Pitbulls's contestants have never made it so far as the semi-finals. But you…" Greenie slowly stalked forward, a look Peter would almost call hunger on his face. "You're going to win this for us."

Peter stepped back as the man continued to advance, only stopping as his back hit the wall. "I don't–"

"I'm only going to ask you one more time today," Greenie said, nostrils flaring slightly, "and believe you me, it would be in your _best_ interest to answer the question. What's your name?"

Silence reigned as neither male said anything. Peter lifted his chin and pressed his lips together tightly. An unpleasant smile stretched the corners of Greenie's mouth as the silence stretched.

"Okay," he said with nod, stepping back. "Cabbage," he called over his shoulder. "You got that camera?"

Despite himself, Peter felt a flutter of anxiety ripple through his stomach as the brawny man stalked over, a digital camera held in his hand.

"Great, you'll want to be ready with that," Greenie said and, without any warning, drove his open left palm across Peter's face. The teen, wholly unprepared for the attack, gasped at the sudden sting on his cheek.

Greenie didn't give him time to recover as he quickly socked Peter in the jaw, snapping his head the other direction. He immediately followed up with punch to the gut that left the teen hunched over and gasping before he rapidly jerked his knee into the masked teen's chin.

Peter's head snapped back with so much force that it hit the wall, leaving him seeing stars for the second time that evening. He slid down the wall with a groan as Greenie stepped back, shaking out his bruised knuckles.

"You'll want to get this one, now." Peter heard before the green-haired man was suddenly crouching in front of him, one hand on top of Peter's head, the other pressed against his sternum. It registered in Peter's mind what the man was going to do a second before it happened.

"No!" He cried, hands flying up to stop Greenie, but it was too late. The man seized a handful of the mask and pulled it off with one sharp tug.

Peter blinked up at the man, panting as he tried to gauge his expression. At first it was one of triumph. Then it morphed into one of confusion before finally settling on amusement.

A giggle burst from the green-haired man's mouth as Cabbage's camera clicked away. The giggle grew into a full blown belly laugh until the man had to stand up and walk away to compose himself.

"Oh this is too much!" He choked, swiping tears of mirth from his cheeks. "Do you have any idea who I thought you'd be?" He hacked through another bought of cackles. "Oh good heavens, the way you protect your identity, I thought you'd be some famous person like Stark, or maybe an Osborn, or hell, I don't know the mayor's kid or something. But you!" He slapped his knee and howled for a good minute.

"You're nobody!" He finally managed, staring at Peter with incredulous eyes. "What the hell, kid?" He scrubbed his hands over his cheeks again, ridding them of any and all traces of wetness.

"Alright," Greenie sniffed, snatching the camera out of Cabbage's meaty hands. "Let's take a selfie right quick. I may not know who the hell you are, but we've at least gotta document all this, right?"

He squatted down on floor in front of Peter for the second time. "Smile real pretty for the camera now."

Peter did no such thing, choosing instead to glare daggers at the back of the man's head as he snapped the picture.

"Training starts in the morning, Spidey," Greenie said, hopping to his feet. "Get yourself some sleep. You're going to need it."

And with a wink, he and his two crones were gone, leaving Peter sitting on the floor, mask strewn aside, feeling way more exposed than he should.

He swiped at the blood he feel leaking from his nose thanks to that wonderful knee jerk. He let his head fall back against the wall with a sigh, Greenie's words playing back in his head.

_"__You're nobody!"_

Maybe the man was right. Maybe he was just a nobody. Maybe Peter had been wrong in thinking that Mr. Stark would come looking for him.

Who cared about a nobody?

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Thanks for reading guys! Let me know if you think it's worth continuing. Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Here's the next chapter! Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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Peter's eyes flew open with a yelp as he scrambled halfway up the wall, instinct taking over as a short burst of electricity was driven into his side, rudely (but effectively) waking him up.

He stared down at Jason with wide eyes from his vantage point on the wall, heart going a mile a minute.

"Good morning, sunshine," Jason said throatily, a small smirk playing over his lips. "Sleep well?"

Peter eyes flicked to the cattle prod dangling nonchalantly in the man's grip. He didn't bother gracing the man with a reply.

"Get down. I need to get you changed for training." Jason lifted his other hand, which Peter now noticed was proffering a grey sweatsuit. Peter hesitated. Up here he was at least safe from the reaches of the man's cattle prod. And who knew what Jason was going to do with the Spider suit once Peter took it off? Maybe Peter could just put the sweats on over the suit?

The Spider slipped off the wall, landing lightly on his feet on top of the thin mattress, chains swinging slightly with the movement. Apparently, he had not acquiesced to the man's request quick enough for, faster than Peter's eyes could follow, he jabbed the cattle prod into the teen's shoulder.

Peter hissed sharply and flinched back as the electricity bit at his skin. "What the hell?" He muttered, one hand coming up instinctively to massage the smarting skin.

Jason shrugged, shoving the bundle of clothing into Peter's chest. Peter leaned back slightly from the sudden force. "Took too long," the man said in his surprisingly gravelly tone. "Get dressed, we don't have all day."

Making up his mind to just slip the sweats on over his suit, Peter dropped the shirt onto the bed and unfolded the pants. No sooner had he stepped into one of the legs when another burst of electricity was suddenly delivered to his abdomen.

He bit out a cry of shock, flinching back against the wall.

"Uh uh, Spider boy," Jason chuckled. "You're going to need to take that suit off first."

Peter glowered at the man, pulling his leg out and tossing the sweatpants to the ground. He stared at the man, waiting for him to turn around and give the teen some privacy.

"Well?" Jason raised an eyebrow, circling his hand in the universal get-on-with-it gesture.

Peter's head ticked sideways slightly as he continued to meet the man's bored blue eyed stare. "Aren't you going to turn around?"

A deep belly laugh bubbled out of Jason's throat as he threw his head back at the innocuous question. "No, sweetheart, I'm not. Gonna have to undo your handcuffs to get that shirt on you, won't I? Can't have you loose with my back turned." He cocked his head slightly, eyes wandering over Peter's physique. "And who knows, maybe there's something pretty to see under that suit."

An ice cube of dread suddenly slipped down Peter's spine, the teen barely suppressing a shiver. He swallowed hard against the nausea abruptly churning his stomach and quickly tapped the spider on his chest, the suit loosening around him.

He slipped it off and hastily stepped into the pants, not wanting to spend any more time exposed in front of this man than he had to. When it came to putting on the sweatshirt, Jason unlocked the cuffs as promised, but held the cattle prod poised to strike.

Once Peter was fully changed, Jason didn't reattach the cuffs that secured the teen to the wall. Instead he reached into his pocket and produced a set of inch-thick bracelets that he slid onto the raw skin of Peter wrists.

Jason wagged what looked like a key fob in front of Peter's face. "We're going for a walk, you and me. Try anything funny–" He pressed a button on the fob and white hot electricity coursed through Peter's arms, his hands contracting into fists as he grit his teeth against the scream building in his throat.

He gasped in relief as the pain dissipated as suddenly as it had come.

"Get the picture?" Jason smiled sweetly at the panting teen, taking a surprisingly firm hold on Peter's bicep and marching him out the door.

Peter tripped over his feet as the man's longer strides forced him along the corridor. As they sped down the hall, Peter tried to look into the cells they passed. They were much like his own, if not identical: no furnishings other than a pitiful mattress and a toilet in the corner.

He saw both men, women and, to his horror, children chained to the walls with varying degrees of intensity. Some had collars around their throats. A few only had one leg cuffed to the wall. There was one hulk of a man that was restrained in a straightjacket, both ankles sporting thick manacles. Around his neck was a collar that had a little light that was persistently flashing red.

There was something distinctly dead and hollow about the man's face as he crouched on top of his mattress. But his eyes…those carried a type of animalistic rage Peter had only ever seen in a rabid dog.

For a split second, the man's eyes flicked up to meet Peter's, eyebrows lowering as his shoulders began hunch towards his ears.

_'It's almost as if he's raising his hackles,'_ was all Peter could think, even as a flicker of fear caused his heart to jump, but Jason hurried them on before anything else could happen.

Jason led Peter to the end of the hall, took a few turns, manhandled the boy down a flight of flight of stairs and finally through one last door. The room was pitch black but Peter could already tell it was large due to the continuous resounding echo of their footsteps.

He was just about to ask where the man had taken him when the lights were suddenly thrown on, causing him to flinch and blink rapidly at the sudden brightness.

"A little warning next time?" He muttered, slightly distracted as he took in the structure of the room.

Each of the walls were lined with black stadium seating that rose almost to the top of the domed ceiling. Up high to Peter's left was a glass box filled with desks and monitors. At the front was a table equipped with another monitor and microphones: the commentators booth.

And there, in the center of the room, standing at least twenty feet tall, was a black, steel wrestling cage.

"So what do ya think?"

Peter jumped at the unexpectedly loud voice behind him, then jumped a second time as an arm was suddenly thrown around his shoulders. He leaned away from the green-haired man that had somehow snuck up on him.

Why hadn't his Spider-Sense warned him?

"Pretty, isn't it?" Greenie mused, staring at the cage with something akin to fondness. "Gon' be even prettier once you win us that prize," he said, giving Peter a hearty slap on the back. Peter jolted forward slightly as the man stepped away.

"Did Jason give you your morning dose?" The green-haired man asked, casually walking away a few steps, one hand digging something out of his jacket pocket.

Peter's eyes flicked towards Jason as the other man suddenly let out a groan.

"Oh, sorry, man," Jason said, eyes screwed shut. "I completely forgot about that."

Greenie waved off the apology as he popped a stick of gum into his mouth. "No matter. You can just do it now, right?"

Jason nodded quickly and pressed a button the fob that was linked the bracelets Peter wore.

There was prick on the inside of his left wrist and a sense of lethargy washed over the teen, not unlike the feeling from the night he'd been taken. He shook his head as his eyes began to cross of their own accord, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. Peter stumbled back on shaky legs as both Jason and Greenie reached out to grab him.

"N-No!" He slur shouted. "Wh-wha… what d-did you g-give me?" He mumbled. "W-Why…"

"Yeah, Jason, why?" There was the sharp sound of flesh hitting flesh followed by a raspy _ow_. "I only wanted you to take his strength down a notch, not take him down for the count!" The smacking sound repeated. "How much did you give him?" Greenie hissed.

"I'm sorry!" Jason retorted, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "I thought it was a half dose. I must've given him the full thing by accident."

Peter dropped down to one knee, barely flinging out an arm in time to catch himself. He distantly registered a hand reaching under his armpit and helping to hold him steady.

"Alright, alright, okay," muttered Greenie. He grasped Peter's chin, forcing it up so he could look into the boy's face. Peter's eyes were barely open at this point, eyelids fluttering as he fought against the effects of the drug. But that wasn't what the man was interested in.

"Hey, Jason?" Greenie frowned. "Get a load of this." He leaned forward slightly, squinting in the fluorescent lighting, making sure he wasn't seeing things.

Jason crouched down next to the pair on the floor, leaning his head in next his friend's. "What're we looking at?"

Greenie pulled back a touch, nodding his forehead at the mostly unconscious teen's face. "You 'member last night, we was all in his cell. I smacked him around a little bit?" At Jason's nod, the man continued. "I gave him a pretty sharp knee to the nose, right?"

"You did."

"And a hefty right hook?"

"Felt it before with my own jaw."

Greenie chewed the inside of his lower lip for moment. "Then where the hell are the bruises?"

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Next chapter will have Tony (finally, I know. Sorry it took so long!).

Thanks for reading! Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Here's the next chapter! Uploading twice in one day since I'm going out of town this weekend. Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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"Hey ah ah ah! That doesn't go there. Did you even look at the plans I laid out for you?" Tony ducked under Dum-E's arm as the robot swung towards him, dropping the rounded piece of metal in it's claw onto the work table.

"Oh no wait," Tony muttered, picking the piece back up. He frowned at it for a second before flipping it the other way around. "You were right. It was just upside down." He passed it back to the robot, who chirped cheerfully and took the segment back.

Tony grabbed a wrench of the bench next to him before walking back over to the car he and his bots had been working on. He eased himself back onto the creeper and slid under the vehicle, snatching up his safety goggles from where'd left them a few moments ago.

Once they were firmly in place, he stretched up his arms and dove back into this work, humming slightly to the song blasting throughout his workshop.

He didn't know how long he spent beneath the belly of the car when the music suddenly faded and FRIDAY's voice called out, "Incoming call from May Parker."

"Put 'er frue," he lisped around the wrench handle between his teeth.

_"__Stark?"_

"'Ey May," he said, grunting as he shoved another piece into place. "'Ow're 'ou liking Cali? 'Ad an In-an-Out 'urger yet?"

_"__Have I what? Stark, I can't understand you."_

He pulled the wrench from his mouth and hauled himself out into the open space of the workshop. "Sorry," he said, getting to his feet. "What's up?"

_"__Have you talked to Peter recently?"_

Tony nodded, tossing the wrench back into the toolbox where it clanged loudly. "Yeah, I talked to him earlier today," he said aloud once he remembered May couldn't see him.

"That was yesterday, Boss," FRIDAY interjected. "It is currently 2:08 pm on Saturday afternoon."

Whoops.

"Scratch that," Tony amended. "I talked to him yesterday."

_"__So did I,"_ May said quickly. _"But I can't get ahold of him today. He's not answering any of my messages and my calls are going straight to voicemail."_

Something in her tone gave the billionaire pause. He picked up a screwdriver and absentmindedly tapped it against his palm. "Well it is Saturday. You know how teenagers are: they need sleep more than they need to breathe."

Neither one of them believed it for a second. Tony didn't even know why he was trying to play it off. Internally, a spark of worry was starting to fester in his stomach.

_"__I know. And I know I'm probably just overreacting, and I know you are an incredibly busy man, but it would really put my mind at ease if you could find five minutes to go check and see if he's okay,"_ May said in a rush, barely masking the plead in her voice. _"I just– I'm worried maybe he's sick or hurt or something. You know how he is. Please, Tony?"_

Well, damn. Why'd she have to go and pull out the first name card? He was going to do it anyways but now it was more than a just a box to be checked; it was personal.

"Yeah, I'll head over to your apartment right now," he said, tossing the screwdriver back onto the tabletop and grabbing his zip-up hoodie from the back of the chair.

May released a small breath of relief at the man's consent. _"Thank you. Have him call me when you find him, please?"_

Once Tony had vowed to do so, May disconnected the call after stating her thanks once more.

"Do me a favor, FRI, and try Peter's cell," Tony called to the AI as he pressed the down button on the elevator. The doors slid open a moment later and the man quickly stepped inside, pressing the button for the garage.

"Call failed. The connection went straight to voicemail."

Tony frowned, chewing the inside of his cheek slightly.

"Would you like me to try again?" FRIDAY asked in her lilting Irish brogue.

The billionaire scratched idly at his chin as the doors opened, depositing him on the ground floor. "No, don't bother. Do me a favor though–" He quickly keyed in the code to the lock box for the many sets of car keys. Not even bothering to check which car it went to, he picked the first set off one of the rings. "–track down the GPS on his phone. Let me know if he's actually at home."

He pressed the lock button, following the horn and flashing lights to car that went with the keys he chose. He slid into the vehicle, strapping on his seatbelt, and turning the key in the ignition. Pulling out of the spot, he revved the engine and tore out of the garage at a speed that definitely wasn't allowed within an enclosed structure.

It took no longer than twenty minutes to pull up to the Parkers' apartment complex. Tony pulled up to the curb, coming to an abrupt stop. He locked the car, twice (you never knew with the riffraff of Queens), and hopped up the steps to the front door.

Before May had left for her trip, she'd given Tony a spare set of keys to the apartment. "For emergencies only, okay?" She'd said, withholding them until the man had sworn he'd only use them in an emergency. He snorted as the twisted the key in the lock. What on earth else had she thought he'd use them for?

"FRIDAY, what's taking so long on that GPS?" Tony whispered, sliding on his special glasses as he climbed the stairs to the apartment.

"Apologies," his AI replied. "Something keeps throwing off the signal. I'm unable to get a definite lock on the phone's location."

Tony's brows drew together in a frown as he reached the door and inserted the key into the lock. "What– like you're being hacked? You've got some of the best firewalls ever designed, FRI. Go nuts."

He slipped the keys back into his pocket as the AI responded. "It's nothing on my end." If Tony didn't know any better, he'd say FRIDAY sounded offended.

He shoved the door open, perhaps a little harder than was necessary and stepped into the apartment. "Kid, you in here?" He called, closing the door behind him with his foot.

"I'll keep trying," FRIDAY said. Tony slipped off the glasses and placed them in his jacket pocket. "Kid?" Tony called again, briefly peering into the kitchen and living room. He changed directions and headed down the hallway, pausing at the partially opened bathroom door.

The lights were off inside so the man quickly ruled it out as housing the MIA teenager.

"Pete?" He called, rapping his knuckles on the boy's bedroom door, one eyebrow flicking up in surprise as the door swung in at the pressure.

Pressing his palm against the wood, he pushed until the crack was big enough for him to step through. "Peter?" He called again, softer this time, as his eyes swept over the room taking in the few items of dirty laundry strewn about, the rumpled bed clothes, the untied shoes flopped on their sides.

But no Peter.

Whipping his glasses back onto his face, he tapped the right side twice, bringing the display to life. "FRIDAY, tell me you've got something on that GPS."

"Negative, Boss. I'm still unable to get a lock."

Tony exhaled sharply through his nose. "What the hell…" He muttered. His eyes fell on Peter's backpack propped up against his desk, half-opened. Tony crossed to the desk and dropped into a crouch next to the bag. He rifled through the bag's contents, shifting notebooks and folders as he searched for familiar red and blue suit that the kid always, for some goddamn reason, took with him to school.

He sat back on his heels with a frustrated sigh. No suit.

No Peter and now no suit.

Could it just be that the kid was out being Spider-Man and had been deliberately ignoring all calls? Pretty shitty thing to do but when crime calls…

"FRIDAY, track the Spider suit," Tony said, not moving from his position on the floor.

"Tracking now."

Tony stuck his thumb between his front teeth as she ran the scan. Why was this taking so long? On a normal day, FRIDAY could pinpoint a GPS in under three seconds. It had now been ten seconds. "FRIDAY, what–"

"I am unable to locate the suit." She almost sounded surprised. Tony pulled his thumb out of his mouth and shot back up to his feet.

"Give me something, FRI," he said because what the hell? Since when had his AI ever been able to be thwarted not once, but twice in one day. He dropped heavily into the desk's computer chair, nerves getting the best of him as he drummed his fingers on the desktop.

"The suit appears to be offline, sir," FRIDAY responded.

"Define 'offline'." Tony's hand curled into a fist, knuckles tapping now instead of fingertips.

"Just that, Boss. There's no input or output coming from the suit right now."

Tony screwed his eyes shut tight as he processed her words, one hand massaging his temple. "So… what, you're saying he's not in it right now?"

"No, Mr. Parker is not using the suit. But the suit is also offline," she repeated.

His eyes sprang open as he lifted the hand off his head in the universal "huh?" gesture. "Okay, so–" He paused to scratch his head. "–he's not in the suit. Got it. You're saying it's offline. Not a problem; I created failsafes for this. You should still be able to access Karen from the last time the suit was up and running."

"Accessing files."

Tony didn't have to wait long.

"Last data log is from Friday at 10:52 pm," FRIDAY recited. Tony ran a hand through his hair.

"Right before curfew. He was probably heading home," he mumbled to himself.

"A partial distress signal from Karen was attempted before all systems went down," the AI continued. "Would you like me to play video footage leading up to the time stamp?"

"Later. Go back to the part about a 'partial distress signal'?" A stone of unease dropped heavily into Tony' stomach.

A string of data rolled across the display of his glasses before FRIDAY responded.

"I am unable to gain specifics about the distress signal, due to it's incompleteness. The only information I tell is that the suit's AI was alerting you, sir."

Tony pulled off the glasses and scrubbed a hand over his face. The kid had been about to call him for help. He sat in silence for a moment, staring blankly at the bubbling wood of the desk before finally sliding the glasses back onto his nose.

"Bring up that footage for me," he said, clearing his throat against the sudden dryness. "Put it up on my phone."

He slipped his phone out of his pocket as FRIDAY loaded the files. The video started with Peter flipping through the pale blue skies of Queens, distracting criminals with his witty banter then taking them out with his skillful acrobatics.

The sky switched from blue to orange and pink as Tony fast forwarded the video, anxious to get to the end. Things didn't get wonky until the sun had finally set on the city. Tony glanced at the time stamp on the video as Peter talked to a little boy about finding his mom.

"What the hell?" He muttered for the second time that day as something happened that he couldn't see. All he heard was a whispered apology that he assumed had come from the child and then Peter was on the ground.

"Did that kid just… drug him?" Tony whispered, a twinge of anger leaking into his voice as another figure walked into the suit's camera. "But that's…" It was the man that Peter had been following earlier that evening. Were the man and the kid some kind of tag team?

"FRIDAY," he said once the video had ended, "tell me you've got a location for where this went down."

"Yes, Boss."

"Good." Tony shoved himself out of the chair, sending it rolling away from the force. "Cause someone's got our kid and it's time to get him the hell back."

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Thanks for reading! Next update won't be for a few days…Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Here's the next chapter! Thanks for your patience while I was away. Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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Ugh, what was that smell?

It was familiar. A cleaning solution of some kind, maybe? May used it at home.

Windex? No, not quite.

Bleach? No, not strong enough.

Oh! Rubbing alcohol! That was it.

There was an underlying scent as well, but the drug haze in his mind was making it hard to place.

"Oh, are you waking up? You are, aren't you? I can see your pretty little lashes fluttering." That was Greenie's voice.

Peter slowly opened his eyes, squinting against the bare bulb dangling directly above him. He was lying spread-eagled on an unyielding surface with thick metal bands digging into his arms and legs above each joint.

Not good.

He tried to take a steadying breath in through his nose as Greenie's gelled hair and grinning face loomed over him. "Did you sleep well?" He waggled his eyebrows before ducking back out of sight. Peter tried to turn his head to keep the man within his line of vision but was alarmed to find that there was also a band of metal encircling his head, keeping it firmly in place.

The intensely air conditioned room raised goosebumps on Peter's bare skin, suddenly forcing the question of "Where did my clothes go?" to the front of his mind.

He flinched and attempted to pull his right arm back when something cold and wet was unexpectedly swept across his forearm. He stared out of the corner of his eye at Greenie as the man repeated the action farther up his arm.

"What're you doing?" Peter asked, hating the way his voice shook around the words.

"Just preparing the site," said the man, not looking up from his work. "Can't have my prize fighter getting any infections, can I?" He twisted his neck and gave Peter a small smile, as if the statement were meant to be comforting.

Alarm bells were starting to ring in the back of Peter's brain. Not good upgraded to very not good.

"So how does it work?" Greenie continued, walking back to stand over Peter again.

"I don't know what you're–"

"I've never seen someone heal the way you do. Gotta be damn useful in a fight," Greenie said, staring at Peter with wonderment in his eyes.

Anxiety churned heavily in Peter's stomach, sending a shiver of panic up his spine, his skin beginning to crawl. "No, it doesn't work that way. It–"

"So how does it work?" The man repeated, voice barely above a whisper as he leaned even closer.

Peter held his breath, hating that he couldn't even lean away from the man. He had no escape.

"Remind me, kid," Greenie said, blazing hazel eyes boring into the nervous browns of Peter's. "What's your name?"

Still Peter didn't draw breath, mouth resolutely shut, eyes never breaking contact. He watched as Greenie's upper lip pulled back in a soundless snarl. The man shoved back from the table and Peter's eyes slid shut as he gasped in the cool air of the room.

His eyes flew open, however, when he heard the familiar _click_ of a camera shutter. He rolled his eyes over to where Greenie was standing a few feet away, holding the digital camera from the previous night aloft. Peter looked away, cheeks flushing slightly as the man snapped another shot of the teen lying on the table.

After a moment, there was a thud in which Peter assumed Greenie had finally put down the camera. He heard the man's footsteps approach again but didn't bother to look over.

"I'm going to give you one more opportunity here, kid, to tell me how that fast healing of yours works."

Peter blinked up at the ceiling, lips still pressed tightly together.

"Last chance, Spidey."

Peter risked a glance over at the man standing at his side and very quickly wished he hadn't. Poised barely even an inch over the exposed skin of his bicep was a gleaming knife that Greenie had gotten from god knows where.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!" Peter blurted, straining against the band around his head. "What are you doing?"

Greenie huffed a sigh, shaking his head slightly. "If you aren't going to tell me how it works, I'm going to have to find out for myself."

"No, wait–"

But the man didn't wait. He sliced the pale skin of the teenager's arm three times in quick succession. The cuts were shallow and about half an inch apart from each other. Peter winced as the metal bit into his skin.

"What the hell?" He hissed, glowering at the man out of the corner of his eye, but Greenie was too enthralled with what he saw to notice.

"Would you look at that?" He breathed, staring at cuts for a moment before suddenly rushing out of Peter's line of sight, only to return a moment later with his camera. He took a picture of the cuts before leaning down to inspect them close up. "Well I'll be dammed."

Judging from the way his bicep was starting to itch, Peter guessed that the cuts had already started to scab over. They had been pretty shallow anyways.

"Satisfied?" Peter couldn't help but spit.

Greenie straightened up to his full height, casting an unreadable expression down at Peter. A slow grin began to spread across his face. "Not exactly."

As the man disappeared again, Peter mentally kicked himself in the butt. _Why_ did he ask that? The man was clearly unhinged. Asking him if he was satisfied was practically giving him an open invitation.

Sure enough, Greenie came back with a different tool: a serrated knife this time. He gave no warning before he dragged it over the soft flesh of Peter's forearm. The teen barely suppressed a scream as the teeth of the blade caught and tore at the skin. He heard Greenie's camera shutter deploy as the knife was cast aside, clanging on the floor as it landed.

Peter didn't know how long they went through the routine.

Cut, click, will it heal?, different spot.

Cut, click, will it heal?, different spot.

Cut, click, will it heal?, different spot.

The taste of iron was in the air as well as on Peter's tongue from how hard he'd bitten it from trying not to cry out.

He lost that battle when Greenie decided he wanted to find out how Peter healed broken bones.

It started with the pinkie finger.

"P-Please…" Peter whispered as the man took the finger into his grip. He couldn't see the man at the end of his arm but felt Greenie still.

"Tell me your name," came the reply.

Tears began to well up in the teen's eyes. "I-I can't…"

A hummed response was all he got before the man viciously twisted the digit eliciting the first scream from the boy. Greenie didn't stop there. He instantly grabbed the boy's ring finger and delivered the same treatment.

Tears leaked from the corners of Peter's eyes, escaping into his hairline as the scream tore from his throat, back arching slightly off the table.

"S-S-Stop!" He cried as the man latched onto the teen's middle finger. There was a moment of hesitation.

"You know," he sighed, lazily taking a picture of the mutilated fingers, "you're probably right. As entertaining, and eye opening, as this has been, we should probably reel this in a little. Don't want to put my prize fighter out of commission, eh?" He chuckled to himself as Peter heaved in unsteady breaths, trying to calm the panic in his gut.

"Alright, kid," Greenie said, patting Peter's chest, ignoring the way the teen flinched at the touch. "I'll send someone in to at least reset the fingers, but then I want to see how long it takes to get those piggies back in working order."

He patted Peter's cheek twice, like a father would their son, but it just made Peter want to throw up.

His eyes slid shut as the door closed behind Greenie, and it was only then that he allowed himself to cry in earnest.

God, what had he gotten himself into?

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Thanks for reading! Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Here's the next chapter! Thanks for your patience while I was away. Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up. This chapter contains slightly darker suggested themes!

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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There were no windows in Peter's cell, no were there any in the hallway. There weren't any in the room that he was taken to when Greenie continued his experiments to learn how quickly Peter healed.

No clocks were found in the training room where Peter was routinely dragged and forced to face off against different opponents in the giant cage in the center of the room. Bleary eyes occasionally caught sight of a timer counting up as he half-heartedly fought back his challengers, knowing that he could cause them serious harm if he wasn't careful.

His circadian rhythm was shot to hell as his captors only let him sleep for short stints of time before rousing him for mealtimes, showers, or rigorous workouts that pushed even his physique to the limit.

The only constant that never let up were the round-the-clock drugs running through his system. He hated them, but he knew it was his own fault. There'd one incident where Greenie had been gleefully tearing off Peter's fingernails, the teen had ripped through the enforced bars holding him down. He'd managed to hurl the man's camera across the room before Greenie had hit a button on his little remote and electrocuted the Spider into unconsciousness.

After that, they'd kept Peter drugged in a state of semi-consciousness, eyes never fully focusing, train of thought derailing every few minutes.

"Docile and complaisant," Greenie had said. Peter'd learned pretty quickly that disobedience earned him fairly harsh consequences. He'd been at the receiving end of blowtorches, crowbars, baseballs bats, steel-toed boots, cattle prods, and twice he'd been strangled.

Total that up with the meager rations they were feeding him, the infrequent torture sessions, and the average savagery of hand-to-hand combat, Peter was a mess.

His healing factor was doing the bare minimum if even that. As Peter laid on his cot, half-lidded eyes staring up at the ceiling, he tried to mentally total up what was and wasn't in working order.

_'__Right ankle? Fine. Left ankle? Pretty sure I sprained it earlier.'_

Peter flexed his foot carefully, wincing as a sharp twinge raced up his leg. _'Okay, ow. Maybe a little more than sprained. Knees are good. Stomach's bruised as hell but what's new? Okay, ribs?'_

He inhaled deeply, pleased to find that he could do so without enormous amounts of pain, though there was a deep soreness that stretched along his lower left ribs. He was almost certain that those were bruised it not at least cracked. Peter bit back a sigh as the memory of a booted foot colliding with his side pushed to the forefront of his mind.

_'__Next. Shoulders. Both okay. Left one is still a little jank, but it's still doing it's job.'_

One of the more vicious opponents he'd trained with in the cage had gotten a little feisty during training one day and had pulled Peter's arm out of socket. Greenie hadn't called time out on the sparring match thought. Oh, no. The session hadn't ended until Peter had the girl pinned to the mat for a full ten seconds.

Oh yeah! That was another thing. Apparently underground wrestling came with it's own set of rules. Dirty fighting rules. Peter wasn't allowed out of the cage on training days until he won against whomever he was fighting. It could take minutes, it could take hours. Peter couldn't rest until he had won. And his body was paying the price.

_'__Elbows are good. Wrists: left fine, right, still broken.' _ He had no one to blame that on but himself. He'd slipped in the shower and landed funny on his right wrist, knowing instantly that he'd broken it when he'd heard the sickening crack that had followed.

Greenie had been delighted, however, when he'd seen the purple and blue swelling around the joint, taking a picture with his new camera and declaring that it was going to be perfect for his research.

Peter, on the other hand, had been silently fighting back tears as the man had poked and prodded at the damaged wrist. That plus his slowly healing fractured fingers rendered his right hand all but useless to do anything but to maybe hold a pencil, or pinch someone.

The tears were not only from the current pain, but also of the pain that was to come if Peter could no longer fight back in his training sessions. What if he couldn't win with only one hand? Not prevailing in matches usually meant some kind of injury inflicted on the teen's already battered body that left him curled in a ball in his cell, unmoving until they came to retrieve him for whatever else was planned for that day.

"Hey!"

Peter jumped at the sudden call, sitting up quickly to see the figure suddenly standing outside his cell.

In the yellow light of the hall, Peter recognized the back of Jason's head as the man leaned up against the bars of Peter's cell.

"Big day tomorrow, huh?" Jason said, casually picking at his nails.

Peter's eyes narrowed slightly in confusion. Tomorrow? What was tomorrow? He tried to think back on if anything was mentioned to him about a special event or circumstance happening.

"Hello?" Jason raised his eyebrows, turning around when he received no response. "The Mattermind semi-finals are tomorrow?"

When confusion continued to reign over Peter's face, the man shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Jesus," he muttered. "I told him all those drugs were going to rot your brain. Now all you've got is a pretty face."

Jason turned around until he was facing into the cell, staring into the teen's blank eyes. "You know, I asked him to let me have you for a night. Just one," he said, his tone dropping into a whisper.

Even through the drug haze clouding his mind, Peter could practically feel the raw sense of hunger seeping from the man's pores, rolling off of him in waves. Peter pulled his knees up to his chest, scooting back towards the wall as Jason continued to stare at him, eyelids lowering as his mouth hung open ever so slightly.

Peter was suddenly very grateful for the iron bars of his cell that not only kept him in, but were keeping Jason out.

"But he just kept telling me to wait, that I'd have a chance, that there were other 'toys' here to play with," Jason spat, hands gripping the bars so tightly that his knuckles were beginning to turn white. "But none of them are like you, sunshine." His head tipped sideways as he studied the clearly horrified teen through the bars. "Innocent, young, naive, fresh."

Nausea churned in Peter's stomach, what little food was trapped in there threatening to make a violent return. Hot and cold chills raced across his skin as Jason licked his lips, pressing himself even closer to the bars.

"Not to worry though," the man smiled foully. "I've been promised a reward for the both of us should you qualify for the finals."

Peter could barely hear the man's laugh over the blood rushing in his ears.

Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodpleasenopleasenopleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

He hugged his knees to his chest as Jason disappeared from view. Hot tears leaked down his cheeks, soaking into the knees of his sweatpants as a choked sob forced its way past his lips.

He didn't even notice as he began to rock himself back and forth in a sorry attempt to comfort himself.

"Please, Mr. Stark," he gasped through the tears. "Please come find me…"

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Is a rescue coming for Peter? Thanks for reading! Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Here's the next chapter! This one's quite a bit longer than the others. I got a bit carried away... Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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_Twelve Days Ago_

"What's his name?"

Tony flicked his eyes up at the display to the photo of a man with dark brown hair dressed in an orange jumpsuit. The billionaire had become so familiar with the man's face over the last twelve hours that he could have described it to you perfectly while blindfolded.

"Maxwell Magnus, 38 years old," he said tiredly, twirling a pen between his fingers as he sat in desk chair with his feet kicked up on the table. "Arrested for dogfighting, illegal gambling, and petty theft; all separate sentences. Finished serving his last sentence a few years back and has supposedly been straight ever since."

May closed her eyes briefly as Tony finished off his diction. "This is the man who has my nephew? He took Peter?" She finally managed, voice wobbling ever so slightly as she looked back at the mugshot.

Tony clicked the pen rapidly a few times before responding. "Yeah," he said shortly. "But, uh," he scratched his nose, "he's going by a new look now. FRIDAY, bring up the image from the SpiderCam, time stamp 10:51:49 pm."

"Yes, Boss."

Magnus's mugshot slid over to the right as a second image popped up. This one showed a man with neon green hair and silver eyebrow piercing, but the face was unmistakably the same. May blinked at the image for a moment, expression stony. "Tell me you know where they are."

Tony swung his legs off the table, tossing the pen onto the holographic surface. "Working on it."

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_Nine Days Ago_

"Bring the most recent images to the front," Tony said, dragging a hand through his hair, eyes red rimmed from lack of sleep and hands shaking from too much caffeine.

Photos of Magnus slid and shifted on the screen as FRIDAY obeyed his command, compiling images from street, traffic, and grocery store cameras– any sighting of Magnus that might give them a lead as to where the man lived or operated.

Unfortunately, he had been a lot of places in the last six months, making it incredibly difficult for Tony to pin a location on him.

Tony groaned, burying his face in his hands, shutting his eyes for more than five seconds for the first time in days.

There was no time to rest. No time to sit down and take a break. Every second mattered. Peter was out there, god knows where, with a psycho who was doing god knows what.

Peter had been missing for five days. _Five days._ And they were no closer to finding him than they had been three days ago.

May had been an absolute wreck, constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown, switching from explosive anger to uncontrollable sobbing at the drop of a hat. Tony didn't blame her in the slightest. Peter was all she had left, and to not have any clue where he was, or what was being done to him was hard enough for Tony who barely even knew the kid.

Tony thanked his lucky stars for his fiancée, however, because didn't know the first thing about dealing with emotions like the ones May was experiencing. But luckily Pepper did. She stepped in without needing to be asked, because that was just the kind of woman she was.

Having been left to his own devices, Tony had expected to figure the whole thing out in a day. But here he was three days later with next to nothing to go off of.

"Close anything that's not from the last two months," he said, dropping his hands from his face to watch the screen again.

FRIDAY quickly closed the images, leaving about fifty behind.

"Run those photos against Karen's SpiderCam," Tony said, reaching for his mug of coffee that had long since gone cold. "See if Magnus has popped up on Peter's radar before. Maybe he's been following the kid and Peter just didn't notice." He shook his head as he took a sip of the cool brew. He really hoped that wasn't the case. The kid was supposed to be smarter than that.

"Will do. This could take a few minutes," FRIDAY replied.

The lab was silent for a moment while the computer worked, before she spoke up again.

"Colonel Rhodes has arrived."

Tony frowned, setting his mug back on the table. "Why're you telling me?"

"You told me inform you if anyone showed up at the Tower."

His frown deepened. "No, I didn't. Did I? Doesn't matter. What's he here for?"

"To see your sorry ass," a new voice said.

Tony whirled around as the elevator doors slid open and Rhodey stepped out, jacket in one hand and a water bottle held in the other.

"Sorry ass? My ass is amazing, thank you very much. Here you want to feel it? I've been doing squats. I promise, it's a wonderful handful–"

Rhodey tossed his jacket over the back of one of the chairs, rolling his eyes at his friend's antics. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. It's good to see you, man," he said, gripping the other man in a tight hug.

Tony clapped the older man on the back, the human contact revitalizing him slightly after three days set apart from people. "You too, Rhodes. That for me?" He pointed at the water bottle still in the other man's hand.

Said water bottle was instantly forced into his hand. "Since you've probably had nothing but scotch and coffee over the last couple days," Rhodey said, quirking an eyebrow at his friend.

Tony twisted off the cap and drained a third of the bottle in one go. "You know me so well," he said once he' swallowed.

Rhodes rolled his eyes and looked past him the images still up on the screen. "That him?"

The billionaire nodded without turning around, rolling the water bottle in his hands.

"Tony, why didn't you call me?"

The man sighed, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. "You're here, aren't you?"

"Yeah, 'cause Pepper called me," Rhodey said as Tony walked away a few steps, one hand massaging the back of his neck. "Why are you trying to do this alone?"

"I'm not–" Tony spun around, his voice coming out much louder than expected. He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply through his nose. "I'm not trying to do this alone. May's been talking to the cops," he said, crossing his arms. "Other than FRIDAY and Vision… you're all I've got right now, Rhodes. And I knew you'd come."

Rhodey was silent for a minute before he nodded. "Fresh pair of eyes. Catch me up on what you've got.

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_Six Days Ago_

Tony shot up from the couch with a gasp. "Tattoos!" He panted.

Rhodey turned around from where he stood in front of the display, watching one of the videos FRIDAY had pulled up from the SpiderCam. "Come again?" He said, quirking an eyebrow at his friend.

After a momentary struggle with the blanket he'd had wrapped around him, Tony stumbled over to the screen Rhodes was standing in front of. "FRIDAY, pull up that photo of Magnus in that disgusting old wife-beater."

The video minimized into the bottom of the screen as three pictures popped up, each on showing Magnus in a different colored shirt. In two of the photos, his left side was toward the camera, but in the third, his right side proudly displayed a fully tattooed sleeve on his right arm.

"Close those two." Tony flicked his finger at the first two images and they quickly disappeared. "Zoom in on just the tattoos, please."

The image magnified until only Magnus's arm was visible.

"What are we looking for here, Tones?" Rhodey said, leaning his head towards the other man slightly but never taking his eyes off the image.

"Dogs," he said, zooming the image in even further on Magnus's bicep. The tattooed animal was depicted in red and black, the dog's short ears standing to attention as its tongue lolled out of its mouth, slobber dripping from its jaws and tongue. It's wide-set head was lowered on its thick neck as it stared with eyes that were pure white.

"Well, can't say that's better than having 'Mom' permanently etched into but…" Rhodey trailed off as he continued to stare at the image. "What made you think of this?" He gestured at the tattoo, glancing over at Tony.

Tony swiped the image off to the side, leaving it up on the screen as he searched through a set of files. "I'd seen it before," he muttered, fingers flying over the screen as he worked. "It was in one of Peter's patrol videos. On the side of a building, I think?"

He fast-forwarded a video he'd selected, then quickly closed it. Choosing another one, he did the same thing. He did this with five different videos before Rhodey asked, "Can't we just ask–"

"There it is!"

Both men leaned forward to stare at the frozen frame of the video. Peter's knees and feet were visible as he sat on a rooftop with his legs dangling over the edge. But sure enough, on the building opposite the teenager, painted on the very bottom corner, was the same dog tattoo that Magnus had on his arm.

"How the hell did you even see that?" Rhodey wondered, brows pinched together. "What even is it? A bulldog? A pitbull?"

"There was another one somewhere else," Tony continued, completely ignoring the man's question. "It's in another of his suit's videos. God, I'm so glad I put that camera in there," he muttered to himself as he looked for the recording.

The image of the dog was spray-painted on the wall of an alley in the next video, more obviously this time.

"What do you think it means?" Tony said as he stepped back from the screen.

Rhodey shrugged but wrote scratched something down about the symbol on his list of notes. "Hell if I know, but at least it's something. We should get this over to the police, see if they know anything about it."

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_Three Days Ago_

"Stark?"

Tony paused the video from Peter's suit cam he was watching for the umpteenth time as his name was called. He raised his head from where it had been propped against his fist and swiveled in his chair to face the room's newest occupant.

May Parker stood just inside the doors, wearing a matching set of flannel pajamas and holding two steaming mugs aloft. Her hair was thrown over one shoulder in a loose braid with a few curly tendrils escaping here and there. "I couldn't sleep and I figured you probably wouldn't be either so…" She brandished the mugs and shuffled farther into the lab.

She placed one of the mugs on the table next to Tony, the rich familiar smell of coffee instantly filling his nose.

"Thanks," he whispered, picking up the mug and sipping at the hot contents. May pulled out a chair across from him and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest as she drank from her own mug.

They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the warmth of their drinks before May spoke again,

"You know, when I first talked to the police, they first thing they did was ask if I was sure that Peter hadn't just run away."

Tony glanced over at her, but her eyes were focused on the liquid in her mug.

"It took way too long for me to convince them that Peter wasn't that type of kid," She sniffed, brushing a loose hair out of her face. "Even when I thought I'd swayed them, they were still skeptical. But they reassured me that they'd do everything to make sure that Peter was brought home safe.

"They asked if there was anyone who would want to hurt Peter," she laughed humorously, finally looking up. Tony resisted the urge to flinch at the tears he saw brimming in her eyes. "What was I supposed to say to that?" She said with a one shouldered shrug. "You know the kind of life he leads, probably a lot better than me. He doesn't talk to me about all this superhero business," she waved a hand through the air.

"I think he thinks I won't let him continue being a hero if I knew half of what he gets himself into," she mused, taking another sip from her mug as a lone tear finally escaped and rolled down her cheek. "He's wrong, of course. But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is bringing him home, safe and healthy– however unreal my expectations may be."

Tony set down his mug, twining his fingers together. "May, I–"

"You know, I haven't said thank you yet," she interrupted, looking at the man over the rim of her mug.

Tony blinked and looked up from the tabletop. "You don't have to–"

"Yes, I do," May said simply as she set her feet back on the floor and put her mug on the table. She stretched her arm across the tabletop and grabbed ahold of Tony's interlocked hands. "I know you haven't found him yet, but I want to thank you for looking for him so hard. I know you're going to find him, Tony."

Ah, shit. There she went with the first name again.

Tony removed one of his hands from underneath her's so that he could place it on top and give the woman's a quick squeeze. He quickly moved his hands off the table after that, however, still not big on physical touch.

May retracted her hand and picked her mug back up, pushing up from her chair. "I'm going to give the whole sleep thing another try," she said with a little yawn. "And as much as I appreciate what you're doing down here, you should try it too. You're no good to any of us if you're dead from sleep deprivation."

The man spared her a tired smile as he picked up his mug. "Shouldn't have brought me coffee then."

"It's decaf." She winked at him as Tony spit his mouthful back into the cup with an indignant splutter.

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_Present Day – Morning_

"FRIDAY, give me a map of Queens."

The 3D image of the city began to etch over the holographic table in bright blue.

"Pinpoint each spot there's been Magnus's dog tattoo spray-painted on a building," Tony said, narrowing his eyes at the display. "Only the ones from the SpiderCam."

Six red lines shot up from the map.

"Now add in the ones from the street and traffic cams."

Fourteen more red lines joined the grid.

Rhodey stood on the other side of the table, arms crossed, eyes flicking back and forth across the map. "You seeing what I'm seeing?" He said after a moment, looking across the display at his friend.

Tony, in lieu of response, scrambled up onto a chair to see the map from a higher view. He stared down at the grid, a spark of amusement flickering in his eyes. "It can't be that easy."

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_Present Day – Evening_

It was that easy.

"Look at the earrings on that guy," Tony said, peering down from the top of the building into the alley below. All the spray-painted symbols had added up to be a map of their own, the last one ending up over a gated doorway in an alley in one of the sketchier parts of Queens.

Tony and Rhodey were currently staked out on a the rooftop of the adjacent building, watching as people had gone up to the door's entrance and pressed the buzzer. Each person, or set of people, had muttered something into the intercom and then had been buzzed in.

Whatever was going on, it was a private affair. It did absolutely nothing to calm Tony's nerves. In fact, it was only thanks to Rhodey that Tony hadn't already blasted through the door and gone inside hours ago to wreak havoc on the place.

"We don't even know if Peter's in there, Tones," Rhodey had said. "We need to play it safe."

Peter had to be in there. He had to be. Because Tony didn't know what he was going to do if he wasn't.

They'd been waiting on that roof for nearly thirteen hours, watching all sorts of peculiar characters enter the building. Some looked like your average Joe and Jane, while some looked like the kind you didn't want to encounter alone on the street when it was dark.

Tony counted at least 300 people who ducked inside, although the building they disappeared into wasn't very large. He had FRIDAY scan the building and she came back with reports of an underground system much larger than the one built on the surface.

He pulled himself back the ledge and glanced down at his watch with a sigh. _8:13._

"Screw it," he muttered. "I'm going in." Tony marched over to the roof's ladder, ignoring Rhodey's protests as the man followed behind him.

"Tony, you don't know what you're walking into. You saw how many people went in there. You can't take them all on your own," the Colonel whisper shouted as Tony stepped onto the ladder. "Hey!" Rhodey shot out a hand, grasping onto one of Tony's before the man could begin his descent.

"I don't give a damn about me right now, Rhodes," Tony said, glaring back into his friend's face. "If that kid is in there, then we don't have any more time to waste. He's waited long enough. Now, are you going to help me or not?"

It was times like these that Rhodey began to question why he'd been appointed as this Stark's keeper.

"Yeah, I'm coming. But can we take the stairs? I don't you looking at my ass the whole way down."

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_"__Passkey?"_

"Cherry Adventurous Gate Ecology Disease," Tony said as the words rolled over the HUD of his glasses, silently thanking FRIDAY for eavesdropping on the people from earlier.

_"__Welcome to Mattermind."_

"Thanks," Tony muttered as the lock disengaged and he was able to swing the gate open. Just inside the door were two doorways; one was plain wood, the other was also wood but had the familiar artwork of a slavering animal on it.

Easy guess of which one they were supposed to go through. On the other side of the door was an elevator that took carried them down at least five floors. Before the doors had even opened, both men could hear the deafening sound of cheering and screaming. Feet were being stamped, boos and howls echoed off the walls, reverberating down the hall as the elevator doors slid open.

Tony's heart began to beat faster as the pair walked towards the source of the noise, the hall depositing them on the ground level of what appeared to be an enclosed wrestling arena.

A collective cry of _"Ooh!"_ rose from the crowd as something Tony couldn't yet see happened.

_"__He's back up! I thought he'd be down for the count, but ladies and gentlemen, this kid just does. Not. Quit,"_ came a magnified voice that echoed around the arena.

They were closer now. They were inside the room. Almost every single high-rise chair in the domed room was full, all faces turned towards the brutal fight going down in the gigantic black steel cage in the center of the room.

But it wasn't the savagery of the fight that made Tony's blood run cold. It wasn't the blood smeared across the mat. It wasn't the glee on the spectators' faces that made him want to throw up right then and there.

What made his heart nearly stop beating was that one of the fighters, bruised, bloodied, and looking as if he were about to keel over, was Peter.

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Thanks for reading! Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Sorry sorry sorry sorry SORRY! For some reason, I really struggled writing this chap. But anyways, here's the next chapter! Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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Today had been absolute hell for Peter.

He'd woken up exhausted, having barely slept the night before. He'd been to afraid that Jason would return in the middle of the night unexpectedly and finally act on the urges the man had expressed so clearly the day before.

Greenie's mood had been bipolar from the second he walked into Peter's cell that morning.

First, he'd cheerfully greeted the teen, talking about what a great day it was going to be and how much more amazing it was going to be once Peter had placed for Mattermind finals.

He was fine until breakfast time. Peter had been served an actually decent breakfast of pancakes, sausage links, and scrambled eggs. There had even been a yogurt parfait and a glass of orange juice.

Peter had been skeptical at first, used to being given dry toast or bland oatmeal for breakfast. But Greenie had encouraged him to eat, tutting about how Peter "needed his strength".

But the food had been too heavy in the teen's stomach, having become acquainted with simpler foods over the last few days. Peter hadn't come anywhere close to finishing it all, whereas normally, at home, he would've been on his second or third plate by then.

He only made it through half a pancake and a third of the eggs before his stomach began to rebel. He knew the second he saw the muscle beginning to jump in Greenie's jaw that he'd upset the man.

Peter's apologies were trampled over as Greenie had grabbed the fork and, with one hand on the back of Peter's head, shoveled the food into Peter's mouth. The teen had gagged and choked as the food was crammed into his mouth, but Greenie hadn't quit until every bit of food was chewed and swallowed.

Oh, the anger on his face when it all made a reappearance five minutes later. Peter had fought to keep it down, not wanting to go through the whole ordeal again, but mind over matter only works for so long.

Greenie's mood perked up once it was time to get Peter ready for the match.

"If you're going to be our mascot, you'll need a suit," Greenie had said, proudly displaying the outfit he'd readied for Peter.

A surge of anger had swept through Peter when recognized his Spider suit. The blue had been painted over with black, the same color also used to create thick, horizontal stripes across his chest and arms.

They'd completely eliminated the webbed pattern Mr. Stark had designed, leaving behind only plain colored fabric. In the center of the suit, where the spider drone was supposed to suit, was stitched a grotesque image of demonic looking dog.

And to top it all off, next to the suit sat an enormous dog mask that had to be as wide as Peter's shoulders. It was not unlike the ones you'd see on Halloween.

Peter had known better than to disagree when Greenie had ordered him to put the ensemble on. The man had been practically gushing over the costume, going on and on about how good it looked. He promised he wouldn't make Peter fight with the mask on, but he did say that Peter would have to wear it for his big entrance.

After that, Peter had pretty much been left alone. Greenie had deposited Peter back in his cell and had left to go do whatever else he had left set up.

When the time had come, Cabbage escorted Peter to arena, making sure the teen had put on his mask before they entered. Before they had even got close, the sounds of the crowd's shrieking and hollering had pounded against Peter's eardrums.

He loved having heightened senses, but it was times like these that wished he could turn them off. The thunderous sound of cheering, clapping, and stamping feet made his head want to explode. He had almost been thankful for the godawful mask he'd been wearing that hid his wince of pain as Cabbage led him to the door of the cage.

Greenie's voice had echoed dramatically around the room as he made Peter's introduction.

"We have a new fighter this year folks! You've never seen anything like him before in the history of Mattermind. He came to us on a stroke of good fortune. And alright, alright. I know what you're thinking. "Why would you put such a scrawny kid in the ring? He's gonna die!" Well folks, I know he doesn't look like much, but this kid can lift a truck with his bare hands!"

More shouts and jeers were heard as Cabbage had forced Peter into the ring.

"Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time ever, I give you the Pitbull!"

Cabbage had torn the dog mask off Peter's head and, gripping one of the boy's wrists, lifted his arm into the air.

"And in the other corner, returning for his fifth year: the Snake!"

Hisses had broken out across the room as people showed their support for Peter's opponent. The man was tall and had a wiry sort of build. He had been dressed in a scaly green costume to accommodate his namesake.

Cabbage stepped out of the ring with Peter's mask, leaving the two males to face off against one another.

"You all know how this works," Greenie had continued. "Five fights are taking place tonight. The winner of each round advances to next, the loser is disqualified. Whoever wins the last fight of the night qualifies as this district's champion for the Mattermind finals."

More screams and cheers arose at the announcement.

"Fighters: you know the rules, which are that there are no rules. The only exception being that we do not fight to kill. Only to maim, disfigure, or cause serious bodily harm. Now who's ready to see some blood on the mat?"

If at all possible, the cheers had been louder.

Peter had felt increasingly sick to his stomach as the countdown started. _Five_ fights? In his condition? Malnourished, drugged, bruised and broken in places– there was no way this was going to end well.

But then the starting bell had gone off and only one thought had pulsated through his mind: survive.

Peter remembered wondering if his opponent had been named Snake (a) because of the way the man contorted his body and moved with such limber ease, or (b) because of the fact that he _bit people. _

At one point during the match, Snake had managed to trap Peter in a sort of bearhug, crushing the kid's arms to his chest in a vice-like grip.

"Looks like the Snake's going in for his signature move!" Greenie had called out over the speakers.

Hisses and screams of delight went up as the taller man leaned his head down and clamped his jaws on the stretch of muscle between Peter's neck and shoulder.

Peter's scream of pain was lost in the cacophonous din of the crowd. He flung himself out of the man's grip, clutching at his right shoulder where Snake's teeth had been seconds ago.

When he lowered his hand, his fingers came away wet. Not just with saliva. With blood. The sick bastard had actually drawn blood.

It was then that Peter knew he couldn't afford to play it safe. Greenie's rules be damned; if these guys wanted to kill Peter, nothing was going to stop them. They were wanted to win and nothing was going to stand in their way. Especially not some fifteen year old greenhorn who wasn't even halfway done with high school.

No more holding back.

Once Peter had made that decision, the first fight didn't last much longer.

A few well placed kicks and punches had the Snake down for the count.

Peter's second opponent hadn't been so easy. The Crippler had been about two feet shorter than the Snake had been, but he was at least four times thicker.

The crowd had jeered and shrieked as Peter had thrown himself into the new match, ducking and rolling as the stocky fighter came after him with meaty fists held high.

Crippler's fighting style seemed to be nothing more than haphazardly swinging his fists around until one of them managed to land. And when they did land, they _hurt_. Dude packed a wallop.

If Peter had only _thought_ his ribs were fractured before, they were _definitely_ fractured now. He dropped to the mat, clutching his left side as he gasped for the air that had so rudely been snatched from his lungs.

Crippler had walked around the ring, arms held high as the crowd screamed in delight.

Peter waited until the man's premature victory lap carried him back around in front of the kneeling teen, then he quickly spun on knee and swept the Crippler's legs out from underneath him. The man landed flat on his back with a jarring _thud_, surprise widening his eyes.

Before he even had a second to register what had happened, Peter was on him, sitting on the man's chest with one arm cocked back to deliver the last strike.

"I'm really sorry," he whispered. "But not that sorry." He cracked his fist across the man's cheek, wincing slightly as he felt bone crunch under his knuckles, knowing he had just broken the man's cheekbone.

There was no respite for Peter as Crippler's unconscious form had been dragged from the ring. Another competitor immediately stepped into the ring, a woman this time, as Greenie announced her name to the frenetic crowd.

"At this time, folks, I'd advise you to hold onto your hats because it's about to get windy in here. It's Tempest!"

The screams increased in volume as Peter eyed Tempest warily as she stalked around the cage, eyeing her opponent carefully. Peter knew from the calculating look on her face that she was sussing out his weak spots, which totally wasn't fair because he currently had way too many.

His sprained/potentially broken ankle was screaming at him as he continued to put his weight into it. The brace that Greenie had slapped on Peter's broken wrist earlier was doing absolutely nothing if the lightning bolts of pain racing up his arm were anything to go off of.

One of his eyes was slowly beginning to swell from were Snake clocked it with a misplaced elbow and the ache in his ribs from Crippler's brawny fist was making it hard for Peter to stand up straight.

He and the woman continued to circle each other slowly, neither seeming to want to strike first. Peter yelped as the metal cuffs around his wrists suddenly delivered a short burst of electricity. He whipped his head to the side to where Cabbage was still standing on the outside of the cage.

The man's face was impassive as he pressed the button on the fob in his hand, sending another shock racing through Peter's body. Though he said no words, his meaning was clear:_ get a move on._

Unfortunately for Peter, Tempest saw the teen's momentary distraction as the perfect time to strike. A dull buzzing began at the base of Peter's skull.

He turned his head back so quickly that his neck cracked, but he wasn't quick enough to dodge the flying foot that caught him in the chest.

He coughed out an undignified _oof_ as the air in his lungs was forcefully expelled for the second time that night.

Peter stumbled back as Tempest quickly advanced, throwing punch after punch. Peter ducked and dodged, on the defensive, losing ground as the woman continued to throw hits with astonishing rapidity.

It wasn't long before his back brushed against the links of steel cage. An unpleasant smirk spread over Tempest's face as she celebrated cornering her prey.

There wasn't much left for it.

Peter twisted quickly and looped his fingers through the diamond links, quickly scaling the wall of the cage. He bit down on his lip to hold back the whimper of pain as all of his damaged appendages cried out against the strain.

A collective gasp of shock and awe rippled through the crowd as the teen scrambled up the cage wall before gathering his legs beneath him and springing away in a perfectly executed back tuck. Peter landed in a crouch in the center of the ring, careful to land one footed so as not to further aggravate his left ankle.

Tempest spun around as he landed, the smirk on her face instantly melting into a hideously unbecoming snarl. She charged forward at a run as Peter lowered himself into a crouch.

When the woman was finally close enough, he reached out and, using her momentum, flung her up and over his head. Her scream of surprise was cut short as she landed flat on her back, not unlike how the Crippler had done.

She was back on her feet in an instant, making another vicious lunge for Peter but the teen was too quick.

He ducked and dove forward into a roll, coming up behind his opponent. He leaped onto her back before she could spin around and hooked one of his arms around her throat in a sleeper chokehold.

Tempest staggered backwards, fingernails clawing at the arm cutting off her ventilation. Peter wanted nothing more than to cover his ears to block out the horrid choking sounds the woman made as he held pressure to her windpipe.

"Sorry, sorry!" He gasped as she slammed his back against the cage wall.

It didn't take long for the lack of oxygen to weaken the woman's struggles. She dropped to her knees, hands dropping to her sides as her eyes slid shut, unconscious.

Peter scrambled off her back, feeling sick to his stomach. He released the pressure around her throat and slowly lowered her to the ground, kneeling beside her to feel for a pulse. The steady beat of her heart beneath his fingers sent a wave of relief washing over him.

It was short-lived.

"Let's hear it for our so far undefeated champion this evening!" Greenie called over the mic as the volume of the crowd intensified.

Tempest's limp form was dragged from the ring leaving Peter kneeling alone in the cage.

It was only once he'd stopped moving that he realized just how exhausted he was. Peter didn't want to admit it, but he didn't think he was going to be able to carry on much longer, especially if his opponents kept increasing in difficulty.

"Only two rounds left tonight, folks," Greenie continued. "Who will be taking their place in the Mattermind finals? Will it be the Pitbull?"

Peter looked up through bleary eyes, squinting through the bright spotlights to look out at the raging crowd.

"Or will he finally be at last be subdued by the strength of the Boulder?"

A new figure stepped into the cage, Cabbage locking the door shut behind the man.

Peter felt his stomach slowly starting to sink into his shoes as he looked up at the person slowly walking towards him.

The guy looked like Dwayne Johnson's Scorpion King on steroids. He had to be at least seven feet tall– or at least that's how he looked from Peter's angle on the ground. He was bare chested, displaying each hulking muscle for everyone to see.

Peter's eyes slid shut as his chin dropped to his chest. "How is this fair?" He mumbled to himself. With a grunt, he heaved himself back to his feet, raising his fists in front of himself in a defensive posture.

Even as he lowered himself into a crouch, Peter knew his stance was weak. There just wasn't enough energy left in his body to do much else.

He just had to survive.

The Boulder was the first to strike. He swung first with a fist then second with a flat palm. Neither landed their mark as Peter leaned back, effectively dodging both.

In the state Peter was in, he knew he wasn't going to be able to land a solid hit on the guy. His plan was to let the Boulder tire himself out, maybe he'd get sloppy and give Peter an opening to do at least some damage.

Peter dropped into a squat as a fist whizzed over his head. He struck out with his own fist at the side of his opponent's knee, dancing backwards when the man gave a cry of pain and dropped to one knee.

But the Boulder was quick to get back up. He stomped over to the teen, fists swinging and legs kicking. They engaged in a strange dance of swipes and dodges, kicks and lunges. It lead them all around the ring, neither one touching the other until Peter unexpectedly stumbled, fatigue getting the better of his reflexes.

It was only a momentary lapse, but it was all the Boulder needed to drive his fist across Peter's face, spinning him around from the force as fireworks exploded in his vision.

He unceremoniously dropped to all fours, blood dripping from his lips as he frantically tried to blink away the spots dancing across his vision.

He distantly registered a collective _"Ooh!"_ that swept through the crowd as he staggered back to his feet, drunkenly whirling around to face the seven-foot giant.

"He's back up! I thought he'd be down for the count, but ladies and gentlemen, this kid just does. Not. Quit," Greenie called, an astonished laugh bouncing his words.

Peter reeled back as the Boulder lunged, fingers outstretched to grab onto the teen but Peter was quicker. He stepped in close to the man and struck out at the man's gut with his left fist, consciously avoiding using his right.

The Boulder was actually lifted off his feet slightly from the body shot, grunting as Peter's fist connected a second time. But it was going to take more than two hits to knock the man down.

Peter didn't have enough time to get out of the man's reach before a muscular hand clamped around his throat, squeezing and making it difficult for the teen to breathe. Now it was Peter who was lifted off his feet, legs jerking and body twisting as he fought to free himself. His fingers scrambled for purchase against the man's iron grip.

The Boulder squeezed harder, lips pulling back in a snarl, fingers digging into the soft skin of Peter's neck.

Suddenly the racket of the crowd began to die down and the only sound Peter was aware of was that of his own heart pumping furiously. Blood rushed in his ears as his vision began to tunnel. He felt his body go limp, fingers slipping off of the Boulder's hand.

Just as his eyes were sliding shut, there was a high-pitched whine that cut through the fog in Peter's mind. Suddenly, the pressure around his throat vanished and he collapsed in a heap on the mat, arms and legs refusing to move as he gasped for air.

The screaming sounds of the crowd came rushing back, though the tone had changed.

They no longer sounded excited. They sounded terrified.

With great effort, Peter peeled his eyes open and saw that the Boulder was a good ten feet away, slouched against the metal links of the cage wall. Smoke was curling off of his blackened shoulder. He was out cold.

"NYPD! Nobody move! Nobody move!"

People were suddenly running as policemen burst into the room, guns raised.

Peter started as hands were suddenly on his shoulders, trying to turn him over. Fear spurred his limbs into motion as he flipped onto his back and scrambled backwards, ignoring the stabbing bolts of pain from his wrist and ankle.

"No, don't touch me!" He gasped as the hands followed him, a figure crouching over him.

"Pete– Peter, stop! It's me! It's Tony!"

Peter stilled at the words, finally looking up at the figure's face. He took in the dark brown eyes behind a pair of glasses and the famous goatee.

"M–Mr. Stark?" He said, failing to hide the tremble in his voice. '_Oh god please let this be real.'_

Tony's expression changed as he stared down at the kid, at look of utter misery filling his eyes. "Yeah, Pete, it's real. It's over; you're safe."

Peter didn't even care that he'd accidentally voiced the statement out loud as he threw himself forward, arms wrapping around Mr. Stark's neck, unbidden tears suddenly leaking down his cheeks.

A sob choked past his lips as Mr. Stark's arms wrapped around him in return, grip firm but not painful. "It's okay, you're okay," Mr. Stark shushed, rocking the pair back and forth slightly.

"Mr. Stark, I'm so s-s-sorry. I'm r-really sorry," Peter gasped out between sobs.

A hand came up to rest on Peter's head as Mr. Stark cut him off. "No no no no no. You have nothing to be sorry for. You hear me? The only person to blame is the man who took you. Speaking of–"

Keeping one arm around Peter, Tony tapped the side of his glasses. "Rhodes, tell me you got him."

Peter didn't hear the other man's response as he continued to hold onto Mr. Stark. But something didn't feel right. The running shapes of policemen and civilians were starting to blur together. His vision kept phasing in and out, eyes unable to focus.

It felt as though his blood had suddenly run cold and his limbs felt like they were made of lead. He could distantly hear the sounds of the chaotic scene around them, but it was as if his head were in a fishbowl.

Mr. Stark must've sensed that something was wrong, too, because he suddenly pulled back from Peter, giving the teen a light shake. "Peter? Pete– hey! Stay with me, kid."

_'__I am. I'm right here,'_ Peter thought to himself.

"…eyes open, c'mon…–ey! Pet–…–wake. C'mon, buddy… Peter!"

But reality slipped away from Peter before he could make out what Mr. Stark was saying.

Blackness settled around him as he fell limp in Mr. Stark's hold.

"Peter!"

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Thanks for reading! I'm going to try and post again pretty soon since you all had to wait for this chapter. Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **Here's the next chapter! Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

The book excerpt in italics is from J.K. Rowling's _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_.

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_"…exchanged looks of glee. 'As I was saying: today, we shall be practicing the altogether more difficult Vanishment of mice. Now, the Vanishing Spell -'_

_'Hem, hem.'"_

Peter kept his eyes closed as the words washed over him, trying to decide if was really awake or not. His head felt like someone had packed it full of cotton and a dull ache was calling out to him from his limbs.

His nose scrunched slightly as his nostrils filled with the scent of antiseptic and laundry detergent. The fingers of his left hand curled around the fabric next to him as he slowly opened his eyes. He shut them quickly as the lights stung his eyes.

_" 'I wonder,' said Professor McGonagall in cold fury, turning on Professor Umbridge, 'how you expect to gain an idea of my usual teaching methods if you continue to interrupt me? You see, I do not generally permit people to talk when I am talking.' "_

Peter tried a second time, getting his eyes open halfway this time as he slowly turned his head to find the source of the voice.

Mr. Stark was sat in plastic chair beside his bed, one hand holding an e-reader, the other propping his head up.

Before Mr. Stark could read the next line, Peter spoke. "Mr. Stark?" He whispered, wincing at the sandpaper dryness in his throat.

The effect was instantaneous.

Mr. Stark's head popped up off his hand, e-reader falling into his lap as he looked up sharply. "Hey, Pete," he said as he stood up from his chair, setting the tablet on the table next to the bed.

A combination of relief and concern painted an odd expression on his face as he placed one hand on the bedrail. "It's good to see you awake, kiddo," he said, a small smile pulling at one corner of his mouth, but the concerned furrow of his brow didn't waver.

Peter swallowed thickly, trying desperately to coat his mouth with some moisture. "Where are we?" He whispered, looking past Mr. Stark as if that might give him some clues.

"We're at the Avengers Compound upstate," Tony said, reaching behind him and snagging a cup off the table. "Want some water?" He said, brandishing the cup.

At Peter's nod, Tony pressed a button on the side of Peter's bed and the head slowly began to raise. Peter instinctively raised his right hand to take the cup, but was surprised to find a white cast around his wrist. He experimentally wriggled (or rather, tried to) his left ankle and found it immobilized.

He took the cup from Mr. Stark and sipped at the cool, clear liquid. Once he was finished, he passed the styrofoam cup back into the man's waiting hand, relaxing his head back on the pillow.

"Were you reading Order of the Phoenix?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow as he watched Mr. Stark place the cup back on the table. Tony hummed noncommittally as he pulled his chair up closer to the bed. "I never pegged you as a Harry Potter fan," Peter mused, eyes slipping shut again.

"Yeah, well, shows what you know," Mr. Stark quipped back.

Peter kept his eyes shut as a smile spread over his face. They suddenly popped back open when a thought struck him like a lightning bolt. "May!" He yelped, shooting upright in the bed, gasping at the stab of pain in his left side.

"Whoa whoa! Easy, kid," Mr. Stark said, hands outstretched in a placating gesture as he stood up from his chair. "Lay back down," he said as he slipped an arm behind the teen and slowly lowered him back onto the mattress.

"Where's Aunt May?" Peter bit out against the pain that refused to dissipate. "She's probably worried sick. Mr. Stark, you have to–"

"She's fine, kid," Tony cut in. "In fact, she just stepped out to go find you another blanket. She thought you looked cold." He shook his head as he pushed another button Peter couldn't see. "I took over reading for her. She should be back any second."

Peter clutched as his side as he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Pain, scale of 1 to 10."

The teen looked up at his mentor's face. "Uh…maybe a two?"

Tony nodded. "Which means a four. Got it," he said just as there was a knock at the door. The door swung inwards to admit a short red-haired woman in a white coat.

"Good morning," she said with a small smile. "It's good to see you awake, Peter," she said, repeating Mr. Stark's earlier words. "How're you feeling?"

Peter tried to push himself upright again, but Mr. Stark suddenly splayed a hand across his chest. He didn't push the teen back down, but his meaning was clear. Peter dropped back against the mattress, eyes flicking back to the woman. "I'm okay."

"My name is Doctor Ghazali. I'm the doctor in charge of your care," she said as she seated herself on the stool to Peter left. With a swipe of her badge, she quickly logged herself into the computer Peter hadn't noticed until then.

"Are you experiencing any dizziness or nausea right now?" She said, fingers poised over the keyboard. Peter shook his head and she quickly entered something into the computer. "Are you in any discomfort or pain?" She asked, staring at Peter with concerned brown eyes.

"Not really–"

"His side's bothering him," Mr. Stark interjected. Peter snapped his head to the other side, tossing the man a look of betrayal. Tony just raised his eyebrows in response, showing he didn't feel any remorse in the slightest.

"Can you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?" Dr. Ghazali asked, transferring Peter's attention back to her.

"A two," Peter said firmly, glancing back at Mr. Stark as if daring him to refute the teen's statement. Mr. Stark simply rolled his eyes and said nothing.

Dr. Ghazali stood up from her stool and approached Peter's bedside, pulling on a pair of gloves. There was a click and then the railing on her side was lowered. "I'm just going to take a quick look at your ribs," she said, peeling back the blanket that covered most of Peter's chest.

He moved his left hand off his chest and let it fall to his side as the doctor slowly lifted his shirt and began pressing gently on a few spots on his lower left side. Peter bit his lip as the pain spiked. It took everything in his resolve not to roll away from her touch.

A hand suddenly settled on his right shoulder, squeezing gently. Peter didn't have to look up to know that Mr. Stark was trying his best to offer comfort as the doctor worked. She placed her stethoscope against his chest and had him take a few deep breaths, which only aggravated his side further.

"Well," Dr. Ghazali lowered Peter's shirt and stepped back slightly, "the good news is that I don't feel any odd lumps and your lungs sound fine. You just need to make sure you avoid any unusual twisting motions and try your best to keep pressure off that side if you can."

Peter twisted the grey blanket with his fingers absentmindedly. "Are they broken? My ribs?" He asked softly, eyes staring down at the grey weave lying across him.

"Your eighth and ninth ribs were both broken, though you only fractured the seventh. Would you like to hear what else we found?" The doctor asked as she peeled off her gloves.

Even though Peter knew exactly what it was they found, he nodded anyways.

"Alright." Dr. Ghazali sat back down on her stool, glancing at something on the screen before she spoke again. "You had a Colles' fracture on your right wrist, meaning that the bone that runs along the thumb side was broken near the top and displaced backwards. Luckily, we were able to set that without surgery.

"I've told you about the fractured and broken ribs. You have a hairline fracture along the outside of your ankle, which we were also able to fix without surgery."

Peter nodded as the woman continued to talk, knowing he needed to hear all of this but hating every second of it.

Dr. Ghazali went on. "We found multiple contusions that already looked to be healing nicely, along with fading ligature marks around your neck. There was a bite mark on your right shoulder that had punctured the skin; its been cleaned and bandaged. Now, Peter, because of the nature of the injury I have to ask: were you sexually assaulted?"

Peter shook his head violently as his eyes started to burn and an all too familiar lump in his throat appeared. Jason's words suddenly sprang to the forefront of his mind. _"None of them are like you, sunshine. Innocent, young, naive, fresh."_

"Okay, good," the redhead nodded, entering something in his chart. "There were a few circular burn marks along your back that we treated. The skin is already healing nicely so we'll just have to monitor them for infection."

Against his will, Peter felt his hands beginning to shake. He blinked rapidly against the tears threatening to spill as the memory of the blowtorch against his skin resurfaced. He'd almost blacked out from the pain. And the smell of melting flesh…

Nausea churned in Peter's stomach as the doctor continued to list his injuries and treatment.

"We also discovered a few stranger looking burn marks: two dots closely set. I'm not sure what those are from, but they are also healing just fine. You're missing a few fingernails off your left hand, but those should return with time."

Peter focused his attention on breathing calmly in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to keep in the impending doom of vomiting at bay.

He was deeply grateful for Mr. Stark's hand still on his shoulder, helping to keep him grounded.

"Mr. Stark here mentioned that you have quite the healing ability," Dr. Ghazali said kindly. "We're expecting to get you out of those casts within about two weeks. Your ribs should heal just as quickly if you follow those instructions I gave you a few minutes ago."

Peter nodded quickly, still not looking at either of the room's other occupants. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he'd either (a) vomit or (b) start sobbing again. And as he currently he wanted neither of those things to happen, he elected to keep his mouth shut.

"Now, I know you said you were in some pain," Dr. Ghazali said, switching gears slightly. "You're IV's only feeding you fluids at this point, so I don't have you on any medication right now, but I can give you something if you feel like you need it."

"No!" Peter blurted suddenly, tear-filled eyes flying up to meet the doctor's. "No drugs! Please no drugs," he pleaded, voice dropping to a whisper as the tears finally broke through his carefully controlled barrier and rolled down his cheeks.

Dr. Ghazali's face softened as she stared over at her patient. "That's your decision. But please know that in the future, should you change your mind, I can only give a lower dose than what you probably need. We did run a blood tox screen when you were brought in and we found traces of oxycodone, diazepam, and propofol. Judging by the amount we found, it's safe to say that you'll probably experience something akin to withdrawal symptoms. We'll be monitoring you closely in case it does happen."

That factoid was the straw that broke the camels back.

A choked gasp escaped his throat as he struggled to sit up, Mr. Stark's hand exerting slight pressure to keep him down.

"Easy, kid," he said. "Don't try to get–"

Peter shot him a desperate look and the meaning must've been clear in his eyes, because Mr. Stark's hand vanished as the man spun on his heel and quickly snagged the waste bin off the floor, holding it under the teen's mouth as he lost the battle with his stomach.

He was sick twice, both times bringing up nothing but watery bile, having not eaten anything since that horrid breakfast Greenie had force-fed him. Tears continued to slide down his cheeks as he retched pitifully over the bin, coughing harshly as nothing but saliva came out the third time.

"You're okay, you're alright," Mr. Stark soothed, rubbing one hand over Peter's back as the teen lifted his head out of the bin.

Dr. Ghazali handed him a tissue to wipe his mouth as Mr. Stark removed the bin and retrieved the cup of water from the table.

Peter exchanged the tissue for the cup of water, swilling the liquid around his mouth and spitting it into the proffered bin.

Mr. Stark set the bin back on the floor at the bottom of the bed as Peter gripped at his hair, drawing his knees up to his chest.

"I'm going to step out now, but I'll be back later to check in on you, okay?" Dr. Ghazali said, tilting her head to try and peer into Peter's eyes.

Peter nodded, eyes closing as he dropped his forehead onto his knees.

Mr. Stark whispered a thank you as the woman's footsteps retreated and a second later came the sound of the door latching behind her.

Peter heard Mr. Stark sigh in the new silence. "Peter–"

"Why?" Peter mumbled into his knees, the blanket covering them slowly becoming wet with tears. "Why did he do this to me?"

There was another click and then his bed dipped as another weight was added to it. "Peter," Tony tried again. "I don't think–"

"What did I do wrong? What did I do? Why couldn't I escape? I'm Spider-Man. Spider-Man's supposed to be strong. So why why _why_ did I let him win?" Peter hiccuped, rocking himself slightly.

"Hey! You did not let him win," Mr. Stark butt in, consciously softening his voice as he watched Peter flinch back at the sharper tone. He reached out gently took the boy's wrists, easing his hands off his head and making him release the death grip on his hair.

"Peter, look at me," he said, keeping the teen's hands held in his own.

His heart broke as the boy looked up, red-rimmed eyes full of despair and complete misery.

"You did _not_ let him win," Tony repeated, gaze never wavering. "You were strong, Peter. Strong enough to keep your head down and follow instructions from a man who could've snapped at the drop of a hat. Whatever it was you did, or he made you do, you did what you had to to survive. Peter, I'm sorry that I didn't find you sooner. I'm sorry that it took so long for me to get to you. But I swear on my life that nothing like is will ever happen to you again. You're going to recover, kid. You're going to bounce back stronger than before. Doesn't matter how long it takes for you to get back on your feet, your aunt and me will be right there with you the whole time."

He placed his palm against Peter's cheek, swiping away a tear from under his eye. "You're going to be okay."

Peter sniffed, eyes closing as he allowed Tony's hand to take the weight of his head, overwhelming exhaustion suddenly making itself known.

Mr. Stark eased him back onto the pillow before sliding off the bed.

Peter flung out a hand, catching the back of Mr. Stark's shirt as the man made to sit back in his chair. "Stay?" Peter asked, eyelids heavy as he gazed up at the man imploringly.

A sad sort of smile lifted the corner of Tony's mouth as he turned back. "I'm not going anywhere," he said snagging the e-reader off the table before sitting back on the bed. Peter scooted towards his left, giving the man space to stretch out on top of the blanket.

Tony leaned back against the pillow and switched the tablet on with one hand, the other mindlessly carding through Peter's hair as the teen burrowed into Tony's side, head resting on the man's shoulder.

Mr. Stark's voice filled the silence as he picked up reading where he'd left off. _" 'Professor Umbridge looked as though she had just been slapped in the face. She did not speak, but straightened the parchment on her clipboard and began scribbling furiously. Looking supremely unconcerned, Professor McGonagall addressed the class once more.' "_

Peter's eyes slipped shut of their own accord as he listened to the story. As Mr. Stark attempted a Scottish accent, Peter felt a warm feeling spread over his skin. He felt his muscles relax as the hand continued to run through his hair, feeling a sense of ease and security that he hadn't felt in days.

This was safe. _He_ was safe.

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Thanks for reading! I'm going to try and post again pretty soon since you all had to wait for this chapter. Drop me a review if you've got the time!

**A/N:** This may or may not be the last chapter of this story. There are some loose ends that need tied up. What happened to Magnus? What will become of the photos he took of Peter? How will Peter handle recovering from such a traumatic event? I hope you'll stick around to find out!


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **Here's the next chapter! Sorry for the delay. Thank you to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed!

**WARNING**: Rating may go up.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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When Peter awoke the next time, it was to the feeling of fingers still slowly sweeping through his curls. This time, however, the fingers were thinner and had longer nails. He kept his eyes shut as he breathed in the familiar scent of May's favorite cucumber and melon shampoo.

There was a steady beeping to his left from the vitals monitor as it tracked his heart rate.

"Did she specify what symptoms we should be watching for?"

Peter felt the hum of May's words against his cheek as she spoke and he realized he must be partially lying on her.

There was a heavy sigh before a voice responded. "She said it could be any number of things. Irritability, headaches, panic attacks– I mean, the list goes on. She only told the kid about three of the drugs they found. His tox screen came back with traces of at least twelve different drugs. Magnus had Peter doped up on so many different drugs, I'm surprised Peter was able to tell up from down."

_'_Twelve_ drugs?' _Peter fought to keep his breathing slow and even, not wanting to tip off his aunt or Mr. Stark to the fact that he was awake and listening to their conversation.

"Do you think his healing ability will be able to counteract any of it?" May asked, dropping a kiss onto Peter's hairline.

Silence met May's question. Peter didn't know if Mr. Stark had made a gesture Peter couldn't see or if the man was simply taking time to choose his words.

"It's so sick," May spoke again, fingers never ceasing their stroking motion. "Sick and twisted, what that bastard did to him. Peter's just a kid! How could anyone be okay with treating a child like this?"

_'__I'm not a child.'_ A brief flutter of annoyance flitted through his body at May's words.

"The world's full of freaks," Mr. Stark responded, voice low. "Peter just happened to tangle with one 'em."

"Okay but it didn't "just happen", did it?" May responded quickly, her tone laced with a sudden sting of acrimony. Peter knew it wasn't directed at Mr. Stark as she continued talking. "You said Magnus had been following Peter for awhile. That's what you said."

_'__Someone's been following me? Who the hell is this Magnus person?' _Peter felt the hairs on his arms stand up, unease crawling across his skin.

"FRIDAY went back through more of the videos from Peter's suit cam. Magnus's face popped up too often for it to be a coincidence. A city this size? It's not that likely you'd see the same stranger more than once."

May inhaled deeply, Peter's head rising as her chest expanded. "So what does that mean? Peter has to change his routes? Take the bus to school instead of the subway? Maybe shop at new stores? You can't ask him to stop going to Delmar's; I think we'd have a full blown meltdown on our hands." She chuckled softly, but there was a sadness hidden beneath her words.

There was the sound of rustling fabric and the squeak of plastic against the floor as Peter assumed Mr. Stark shifted positions in his chair.

"It shouldn't have to come to that. I don't want life to change for either of you two, especially not after what you've been through with this whole ordeal. I can place guys all along both of your daily routes. You wouldn't even notice them, they'd be–"

"Stark," May interrupted gently. "You and I both know that that's not going to work out. As much as it'd sooth my nerves to have constant protection for Peter, it would only cause him more stress and that's the last thing he needs right now. No protective detail."

_'__Protective detail? Protecting us from what? From who? Why would we need a protective detail?'_

"Alright, no protective detail," Mr. Stark agreed. "The NYPD is still looking for this guy and you can bet your ass I am, too. I still don't know how he managed to get away, but I'll be damned if I let him come near Peter again."

It was then that it clicked in Peter's mind. Blame the slowness on the fact that he'd only woken up a few minutes ago, or on the fact that his brain was still recovering from being in a consistent state of conscious sedation for thirteen days.

The way they talked about Magnus: sick, twisted, apparently a stalker– the comment about Peter "tangling" with one of the world's freaks. They had to be talking about the green-haired man.

But didn't Mr. Stark just say that the NYPD was looking for Magnus? Hadn't he said that Magnus had escaped?

_'__Oh god.'_ Peter's mind was whirling as his heart began to race, the steady beeps of the monitor becoming quicker and more frequent. _'He's still out there. They didn't catch him.' _This was supposed to be over. Peter was supposed to be safe. And yet, here were May and Tony talking about Peter possibly having to change his lifestyle because he was being stalked by the man who kidnapped him. _'Nononononononononono–'_

His eyes squinched tighter as the air in the room seemed to sucked out. It felt as if some invisible force was crushing his chest, preventing him from fully drawing in the oxygen he so desperately needed.

"Peter?" May shifted beneath him, hand coming to rest on the side of his face. "Peter, honey, wake up; you're having a nightmare."

He wasn't having a nightmare. He was _living_ a nightmare.

Peter's eyes flew open wide as he shot upright, startling May at the sudden motion.

She sat up too, slower than he had, and placed a gentle hand on his back, rubbing in a slow circular motion. "Breathe, sweetie," She murmured as her nephew continued to gasp for air.

"I… can't," Peter wheezed, sheer panic clawing its way up his throat as the thought of the Greenie loose on the streets reeled in his mind.

"Yes, you can," May said, voice firm but encouraging. "Remember the way I taught you? In two three four, out two three four. C'mon, Petey."

_In two three four, out two three four._

Peter choked over the mouthful of air he tried to inhale too quickly, lungs beginning to ache from the deprivation.

"Slower, Peter. You can do this," May whispered, hand still rubbing over his back. "In two three four, out two three four, in two three four, out two three four," she repeated. Peter didn't know how many times he counted to four in his head before his breathing finally began to even out.

He flopped back against his pillow, left hand pinching across his eyes as a familiar sting made itself known.

"Want to tell us about that nightmare you were having?" Mr. Stark spoke up, concern lacing his words as he clicked off the tablet he had in his lap.

Peter shook his head minutely. "Wasn't a nightmare," he mumbled, lips barely moving.

"Come again?" Tony said, not quite able to make out the mutter phrase.

Peter exhaled sharply and dropped his hand from his face, eyes staring up at the blank white ceiling. "I said, it wasn't a nightmare. I wasn't asleep."

The room was silent for moment while the other two processed what he had said. May was the first to recover. "How much did you hear?"

Peter shrugged one-shouldered. "Enough to know that _he_ got away." Peter couldn't quite bring himself to say the man's name. It humanized him in a way, and Peter knew that nothing that man did was humane. Nothing at all.

"Kid," Tony said, leaning forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees. "I'm sorry you had to find out this way, but you have to understand that he is never going to come near you again. He won't get to you."

Peter couldn't help the snort that burst out of him. "You don't know that," he said, surprisingly himself by the amount of venom in his voice.

"He got me before, used a child to help him out. What's stopping him from doing it again?" He grit his teeth as a shudder swept through his body. "Sure, maybe he doesn't know my name, but he's seen my face. He can find me so much easier now. He–"

He clamped his mouth shut abruptly as a lump the size of a rock ached in his throat. He closed his eyes, breathing shakily in through his nose as the burn of unshed tears made itself known again.

"Peter?" May's soft voice called. "Honey, look at me."

Peter rolled his head to the right and cracked open his eyes, May's form blurred through the film of tears.

"He's not going to find you, you understand me?" May said. "He's not going to find you because Stark's going to find him first. And when he does, that dirtbag is going to have me to answer to, okay?" She waggled her eyebrows playfully, a touch of a smirk on her face, but Peter knew that if she had a chance to take a whack at Magnus, she'd do it an a heartbeat.

A small smile of his own surfaced on Peter's face as he dragged a hand across his eyes to get rid of the unwanted moisture.

"Yeah, okay," Peter sniffed as his aunt reached out to ruffle his hair.

A muted buzzing noise came from somewhere beyond May. Peter peeked past her and saw Mr. Stark glance down at the glowing screen of his tablet, a look of confusion furrowing his brow.

Tony tapped at something on the screen, eyes squinting slightly at whatever he was reading/seeing. Within a few seconds, his expression switched from puzzled to horror filled alarm to revolted, blood draining from his face as he looked at whatever was on the screen.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter called, unnerved by the display of rapid expressions. "What's wrong? What happened?" He grunted softly as he pushed himself back up into a sitting position, damaged ribs protesting at the movement.

May twisted around to stare at the man in the chair, her own expression shifting into one of concern as she caught sight of Tony's face. "Stark?"

Mr. Stark looked up and clicked off the tablet simultaneously, face going blank. "May, can I talk to you outside?" He said, standing up with the tablet clutched in a tight grip.

Peter's eyes flicked rapidly between the two adults. "What's going on?" He asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. May turned back to her nephew and offered him a reassuring smile.

"Everything's fine. We'll be right back, okay? We'll stay right outside the door. Yell if you need something." She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his temple before sliding off the bed. Peter couldn't help the uneasy feeling rolling in his stomach. What were they trying to keep secret?

Mr. Stark held the door open for May as she stepped into the hallway, quickly following behind. The door closed with a soft click. Peter craned his head to look through the small window set in the door, but May and Tony were beyond view.

He drew his right leg up to his chest, wrapping his arms around it and resting his chin on his knee. Peter closed his eyes and diverted his full focus to his sense of hearing. If the two adults hadn't gone too far, he should still be able to hear them.

He ignored the persistent beeping of the vitals monitor and trained his ears on the voices just beyond the wall.

_"__What do you mean he sent pictures?" _Came May's whispered voice. _"Who? Magnus?"_

_"__I already have FRIDAY running a tracer on the email to get an IP and an ISP address to–"_

_"__Speak English, Stark. Are you saying that you know where he is?"_

_"__Not exactly. Somehow Magnus was able to hack my tech, the Spider suit. I doubt he'd be dumb enough to send the email without first installing a VPN."_

_"__Okay, but what does the email say? You said something about pictures?"_

_"__Along with a letter," _Mr. Stark grit out. _"I don't think it something you should see. I just wanted to let you know that I'll have him by the end of the day."_

_"__Let me see it."_

_"__May, I don't–"_

_"__Let. Me. See. It."_

The uneasy feeling in Peter's stomach roiled as he connected the dots. All those photos of him–cut, bruised, broken, beaten, _tortured_– Magnus had sent them to Mr. Stark.

And he and May were looking at them right now.

_"__Dear Tony Stark," _May's voice picked up again. _"Thank you ever so much for the wonderful almost two weeks we spent with your friend. He was an extraordinary joy to work with, though I don't think he was quite as happy with our facilities as we would've liked him to be. Regardless, we had a great time together. Your friend was rather reluctant to share his name with us– something about keeping a secret identity. You know how heroes are. _

_"__An additional thanks is due to you for supplying us with that bit of information. I heard you call his name right after you so magnificently interrupted the match. Peter. A good strong name. I believe it means 'stone' or 'rock'. As dismayed as I am that our time with Peter was cut short, I thought I'd share some of the sublime memories we made together. Please find below documentation of our sensational time together. Best regards."_

"No no no no no no no no…" Peter breathed, shoving the blankets off of his legs with one hand, the other pulling off the electrodes on his chest and discarding the pulse oximeter on his finger. The machine to his left began to wail a big pitched tone, but Peter couldn't have cared less.

He needed to stop May and Mr. Stark from looking at those photographs. Images that displayed his weakness front and center. Stills of him screaming in pain, pictures of him crying as the agony became too much.

Peter slid off the bed, unsteady legs folding beneath him as he put his weight on them. He clutched at the IV pole, using it to balance himself, casted ankle twinging as he took a few shaky steps forward.

_"__Oh god…"_ May's horrified whisper sounded from the other side of the door. _"Oh my god."_

Dread washed over Peter in waves, sending hot and cold chills racing over his skin as he felt his heart pounded in his throat, the sound rushing in his ears. This wasn't happening. This was _not_ happening.

His legs chose that moment to decide not to cooperate any longer, the left one giving out first and the right, unprepared to wholly support Peter's weight by itself, quickly followed suit. Peter gasped as his knees smacked into the unforgiving floor, instinctually reaching out with his hands to brace his fall, releasing the IV pole.

The catheter in his arm was forcibly yanked from his right elbow as he dropped, the tubing not long enough to reach Peter where he was knelt on the floor.

He snatched his right arm up to his chest, wrist crying out in pain from when he'd caught himself. A tiny bead of blood was bubbling up from where the IV had been ripped out. But again, Peter could not have cared less.

Just as he was about to heave himself back to his feet, the door burst open. He looked up sharply, panic-filled eyes meeting his aunt's as she caught sight of the teen on the floor. She hurried over to his side and dropped down into a crouch beside him.

"Honey, what happened?" She put a hand under Peter's chin and turned his face to hers. Peter's gut clenched as he saw the hastily wiped tear tracks on May's face, her eyes red-rimmed behind her glasses.

Peter's throat constricted at the look on her face. "May, I'm sorry," he said, voice trembling. "I am so so sorry."

May's eyebrows pinched together in bewilderment as she quickly pulled her nephew in close for a hug. "Peter, what on earth do you have to be sorry for?"

Peter dropped his head into the crook of her neck, shaking his head back and forth slightly as tears slid down his cheeks. _'Do you ever stop crying?'_ He berated himself, hating that he couldn't get his emotions in check.

"Oh, sweetheart," May breathed out, resting her chin on top of his head, gently rocking them back and forth. "Tony, tell me you know where he is," May said, voice going hard as she turned her head to look at the man standing in the doorway.

Peter cracked open his eyes and lifted his head to peek over May's shoulder. Mr. Stark's face was frighteningly dark, chin lowered and eyes filled with a malignity that made Peter's heart stutter.

"Yep," Mr. Stark said, eyes trained on Peter's face. "And I'm going to kill him."

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Thanks for reading! Drop me a review if you've got the time!


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **SORRY! I LOST INSPIRATION. HERE YOU GO.

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a second."

Tony glared down at the palm pressed against his chest then turned his gazed toward the man standing in front of him.

Rhodey retracted his palm, raising his other in a sign of placation. "All I'm saying is, don't you think we should be smart about this? Magnus probably knows you're coming after him after what he sent you." Rhodey jerked his thumb towards the door behind him. "We don't know what's behind that door."

FRIDAY had locked onto an address from the router the email had been sent from. Directions had led them to an old laundromat that appeared to have closed many years ago. There were bars and wooden boards covering up the windows, preventing the two men from seeing inside. The walls were made of concrete too thick for FRIDAY to get a read on what was inside.

"We need to be careful," Rhodes expressed, not backing down from Tony's glare.

Tony's eyes flicked past the colonel's head momentarily to assess the barrier between him and Peter's kidnapper.

"He took Peter," Tony all but growled, eyes locking back onto his friend's. "I'm not wasting time on tact."

He stepped backward, into the waiting armor of the Mark 46. Locks and bolts quickly sealed the suit around him, the HUD coming to life in seconds. Tony brushed past Rhodey, raised a gauntleted fist, and drove it though the door.

Splinters of wood went flying as the entire structure was blown off its frame. A faint tinkling sound was heard as the hinges fell to the dust covered floor following the door's demise.

Tony quickly raised his hands, palms glowing and held out before him, ready to attack whoever swung first.

But the room was empty.

There were rows of rusty washers and plastic hampers that had seen better days. Dust clung to the floor was that was sticky from leftover spilled detergent. FRIDAY switched the display to night-vision mode as the only light entering the building was through the destroyed entryway in which Tony stood.

"Open it." The suit retracted and the man inside stepped out, a false calm stealing over his face. A dull _thunk_ sounded as the faceplate on Rhodey's suit slid up.

"He's not here," Tony said flatly.

"Tones–"

"He's not here!" Tony suddenly shouted, spinning around sharply and driving his fist into the wall. He clenched his teeth together as his bones cried out from striking solid concrete. He flattened both palms against the wall and inhaled deeply.

"Tony."

Something in Rhodey's voice made Tony turn around, eyes searching out the man's face. Rhodey's gaze was fixed on a pointed in the back left corner, eyebrows drawn together in confusion at whatever he was looking at.

Tony followed his gaze and caught sight of a flashing green light that he hadn't noticed before. "FRIDAY, give me hand."

He stuck left hand into the gauntlet of the armor and felt it detach from the suit and surround his wrist. Rhodey's faceplate slid back into place as the two men slowly advanced on the far corner, eyes and ears alert for anything that might be a trap.

As they drew nearer to the green light, they saw that the light appeared to be attached to a router of some sort propped on top of a chair. Tony lowered his hand and the bright light of the gauntlet whined as it powered down.

Tony seized the black box and lifted it to eye level. "This is probably where the signal came from," he mumbled to himself. He went to put it down when a small white square of folded paper caught his eye.

It must've been underneath the router for him not to notice it right away. He deftly unfolded the sheet, heart beating a little faster than it should.

Inside, written in the most obnoxious neon green ink to ever grace the planet, was a note.

_"__Missed me! Just like that State Farm commercial: you gotta be quicker than that. P.S. How's Peter? ;)" _

Nauseating dread ran like acid in Tony's veins as his lungs quit drawing breath for a second.

"What does it say?" Rhodey asked from behind him.

Tony blinked rapidly, his fingers crushing the note. "We have to get back to the Compound."

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Tony threw open the door to the third floor from the staircase and barreled out into the hallway. Red emergency lights flooded the hall. Unconscious forms lay bleeding on the floor and slouched against the walls.

Tony's heart beat kicked up another notch. He turned wide eyes on his friend behind him.

Rhodey waved him on. "Go. I'll check on these people."

It was all the prompting Tony needed. He flew down the hall towards Peter's room, jumping over strewn limbs and ignoring the high-pitched wailing from upset monitors. He skidded to a halt in front of room 316 and shoved the door open.

The sight inside made his heart feel like it stopped altogether.

The hospital bed had been tipped onto its side, blankets scattered across the floor. The IV pole had been tipped over, although there was now a strange bend in the middle of it, as if it had struck something with incredible force and become misshapen. The tube that had been channelling fluids into Peter's arm was slowing forming a puddle of saline on the floor.

The vitals monitor was wailing in the corner, but that was the least of Tony's concern.

His first concern was that Peter was missing.

His second concern was the prone woman lying unmoving on the ground.

"May!" Tony dropped to his knees beside her, sweeping her hair out of her face and placing two fingers against her neck. It was unnecessary, however, because at that moment May moaned and slowly blinked open her eyes.

"Are you alright?" Tony asked, slotting a hand under one of her armpits and helping her sit up.

"Peter," she breathed dazedly, one hand reaching to the back of her head. "He took Peter!" She said, becoming more aware as she turned alarmed eyes on the man kneeling next to her.

"Who was it?" But Tony already knew the answer.

May raised a trembling hand to her mouth, intending to press her fingers against her lips. She was surprised to find her fist wrapped around something.

"What…" She sniffed as she unfurled her fingers, finding a crumbled piece of paper nestled in her palm. She quickly pulled back the edges and scanned the message inside.

"What does it say?" Tony asked, repeating Rhodey's words from earlier.

May looked up with haunted eyes, fingers trembling around the paper.

"It says, "Turn on the news." "

Tony shot to his feet and snatched the remote off the table and powered on the tv. He keyed in the digits for the news station as May got to her feet beside him.

The screen went black for a second as it switched channels. The image that popped onto the screen made them both catch their breath.

_"__We apologize for the interruption to your current program." _

It was Peter.

He was sat in the chair normally reserved for newscasters, still dressed in the sweats he had had on that morning. There were chains encircling his chest and wrists. A trail of blood was dripping down his left brow and streaking down his cheek. His skin was practically transparent as he sat shaking in front of the camera.

He looked downright terrified.

_"__My name is Peter Parker, I am an intern at Stark Industries. Please listen carefully, I have an urgent message for Tony Stark."_

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Thanks for reading! New chapter to follow soon!


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **Remember when I said a new chapter was coming soon… Sorry. ;D

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing! I make no profit off of this. This is solely for my enjoyment and hopefully for the enjoyment of others! ;)

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Peter breathed in through his nose to the count of four and blew out to the count of four. He kept his eyes open, nervously eyeing the figure waiting in the theater seating in front of him.

"Think he saw the broadcast?" Greenie's southern accent twanged. Peter squinted against the bright light to see the figure better. "Or maybe," Magnus continued, "he saw it and just didn't feel like coming."

Magnus laughed at himself as the familiar fluttery feeling in Peter's stomach surfaced. He knew Mr. Stark wouldn't do that to him. He wouldn't knowingly leave Peter in the hands of this lunatic.

Peter's ears twitched at the sudden sound of slurping and lip-smacking. He couldn't quite tell with the bright lights working against him, but he was pretty sure Greenie was eating an apple. Apples had a very unique sound.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Greenie said, one hand tenting over his chest as he noticed Peter looking in his general direction. "Did- did you want some?" He said, proffering the fruit even though the teen was over ten feet away and chained to a chair.

Peter dropped his gaze, choosing instead to stare a ring-shaped stain the desk in front of him. He tried to focus his attention on anything but his two time around captor. The cheap finish on the wood had begun to wear away in the spot that the newscasters consistently leaned their elbows during the daily broadcast.

There were indentations all along the span of the desk where objects were dropped onto or jabbed into the wood. Peter concentrated on the feeling of the vinyl armrests beneath his fingers. He counted the stitches that rimmed the front, unable to bend his wrists very far.

He focused on the pain that radiated from his left ankle after having been forced to walk/hobble on it by the green-haired man. He thought about the way the chains were cutting into his injured ribs and vaguely remembered Dr. Ghazali saying something about avoiding putting pressure on them.

What Peter failed to notice was the voice that was asking questions, making demands. He failed to notice that Greenie was talking to him until the man was suddenly behind Peter, grabbing a handful of hair and yanking his head back.

Peter yelped at the harsh treatment to his scalp.

"Are you ignoring me, kid?" Greenie leered, traces of apple skin wedged between his crooked teeth.

Peter shook his head rapidly, or rather tried to shake his head. It was a rather difficult feat to pull off with Greenie's hand still gripping fiercely at his head.

"N-no," Peter gasped, hating that this voice stuttered, betraying his fear.

Greenie started into the teen's face for another moment before releasing his hair and stepping away. He hopped onto the desk backwards so he was facing Peter while sitting directly beside him.

The man curled his hands over the lip of the desk and leaned forwards slightly, legs swinging gently. As he leaned forward, Peter caught a glimpse of gun holstered at the back of the man's belt.

Peter's fear-meter kicked up a notch. In all the time Peter had been with Greenie, the man had never used a gun.

_'__This is a trap,'_ Peter thoughts raced. The moment Magnus had made Peter do the broadcast, Peter had known it was a trap, but he didn't know what Greenie was going to do. But now everything was beginning to add up.

But whether Greenie was going to shoot Peter or Tony, the teen didn't know.

_'__Scenario #1: I'm just bait to get Mr. Stark here so Magnus can shoot him.' _There was no stopping his mind now. _'Scenario #2: He brought Mr. Stark here so that when he shoots me, Mr. Stark has to watch me die. Oh god… I don't want to die. But I also really don't want Mr. Stark to die eith–'_

A sharp smack across his cheek brought Peter out of nightmare that was his thoughts.

"You're ignoring me again," Greenie pouted, arms pretzeled across his chest.

Peter blinked rapidly against the surprise of the blow.

"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?" Greenie asked, leaning towards Peter. Peter meekly shook his head but didn't say anything, not wanting to make things worse. Greenie sighed and reached out a hand, fingers brushing Peter's cheek.

Peter hated the way he flinched at the man's touch, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up rigidly.

"Pay attention this time or there will be consequences," Greenie said softly, extricating his hands from Peter's face. The teen release a nearly imperceptible breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Here's the short and sweet version," Greenie said, placing his hands behind him and leaning back as he continued to swing his legs. "Your friend Stark is going to waltz through the doors looking to save you. You're going to sit here and play the damsel in distress, all puppy eyed and rosy cheeked. He'll run to untie you, like a good hero should. And I–" Magnus paused, a disturbing smirk spreading over his face. "Am going to kill him like any good villain would."

Scenario #1 it was then.

"You see," Magnus continued, "I wasn't done with you yet. Stark's little escapade interrupted the semi-finals of Mattermind. The council's been meeting and they've graciously elected to allow a rematch of the final smackdown. Granted, I have a contest to compete with." The grin on Magnus's face grew.

Peter wanted to scream. This was bad. This was so much worse than he thought.

"Now I know what you're thinkin'," Magnus said as he hopped off the desk and disappeared behind the bound teen. Peter didn't like when he couldn't see him. It made his Spidey-Sense go nuts, sending chills up and down his body making him slightly nauseous. "You're probably thinkin' that you'll just scream at Stark that it's a trap as soon as he walks in the door."

The Spidey-Sense shrieked the moment before a thick rope of wound cloth was stretched across Peter's mouth, not unlike a horse bridle. His head was yanked back sharply as Greenie pulled the cloth tight and knotted it behind Peter's head.

Tears sprung to Peter's eyes involuntarily.

He felt utterly helpless. He was going to have to sit there and watch Tony die, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't talk, couldn't move, he could barely _breathe_ with the way panic was currently crushing his lungs.

The tears spilled down his cheeks as he head a door open somewhere past the chairs. A maniacal grin lit up Greenie's face. "Showtime," he whispered, dashing off into the risers, out of Peter's line of vision.

Peter choked down his sobs as he heard familiar footsteps approaching cautiously. Before Mr. Stark was even visible, Peter's head was shaking back and forth uncontrollably.

This wasn't happening, this _wasn't happening._

Peter heard him before he saw him.

"Peter!" Tony's voice called softly, figure just visible beyond the glaring stage lights. Peter began to pull at the chains criss-crossing his chest, ignoring the blazing pain from his ribs. In the corner of his vision, he could see a figure rising in the stands, arms raised as they took aim.

Peter couldn't help the scream that tore from his throat, the words muffled by the gag in his mouth. Tony was almost to him when it happened.

The harsh crack of the gun being fired followed by the thud of Tony's body hitting the ground.

Peter's eyes widened as his breath caught; he felt as though his heart had stuttered to a stop. A hysterical scream wrenched from Peter's throat.

_Nonononononono_

The misplaced sound of cackling echoed around the room as Peter's scream died out. Hot tears blurred Peter's vision as the green-haired man swaggered back down to the broadcasting stage. Magnus stopped in front of the desk, gazing down gleefully at the still form of Tony Stark. He toed at the lifeless figure, ensuring his success.

Magnus clapped his hands together and grinned at the distraught teen across the desk.

"Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the man suddenly dropped from view, shock painting his face as he fell.

Peter's breath caught as he heard signs of a scuffle, but couldn't see what was going on. His heart leaped into his throat as a figure suddenly popped up, aiming a gun at the other man on the floor. Peter felt his heart stutter for the second time in two minutes, but this time was different. This was a happy stutter.

"You alright, kid?" Tony Stark asked, eyes flicking over briefly to assess Peter.

Silent tears continued to roll down his cheeks as his brain tried to work out what he had just seen.

There was a sudden flurry of movement in the room as door were thrown open on both sides of the room beyond the chairs. Several pairs of booted feet pounded the ground as police officers piled in, all of them pointing their gun at the figure on the ground that had to be Magnus.

Tony disappeared from view a second time as he ducked down to the level of the forcibly prostrated man. He reappeared with something gripped in his hand, Magnus's gun still aimed at its owner.

The billionaire backed off as two policemen took over the situation, cuffing the man and rattling off his Miranda Rights.

Tony swiftly skirted around the desk and pulled Peter's chair away from the desk. He gently pulled the gag from between Peter's teeth, lifting it up and off the teen's head. "Are you okay?" He asked, taking the time to fully assess Peter now.

Peter couldn't find the strength to say words. He couldn't even manage to nod his head in answer to Mr. Stark's question. Peter didn't actually know if he was okay. He didn't know if Tony was okay. He didn't fully understand what had just happened.

Shellshocked was a good way to describe how he was feeling.

Not liking the distant look on Peter's face, Tony quickly ducked behind the teen and slid the key, that he'd swiped off of Magnus, into the lock. He made quick work of the bindings, tossing them to the side once they were all unwound.

Tony hurried back around to Peter's front, crouching down and gently placing his hands on top of Peter's, which had yet to move. Something broke inside Tony as he felt the flinch at his touch.

Peter's eyes slowly found his, tears still streaming without an evident end in sight.

"Oh, Pete…" Tony sighed. He wanted nothing more than to scoop the kid into a hug, but he didn't want to hurt or startle Peter.

The teen extricated his left hand from beneath Tony's and gently placed it on the man's cheek. Tony reached his own hand up and curled his fingers around the shaking one's on his cheek. "I'm right here, kiddo. I'm not going anywhere."

"But you…" Peter croaked. "How?"

Tony released Peter's hands and unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt and pulled the material aside revealing a bulletproof vest. He offered the awed teen a smile. "See? I sometimes know what I'm doing."

A breathy incredulous chuckle broke from Peter's lips. Before Tony could prepare for it, he had his arms full of laugh-crying superpowered teenager.

He embraced Peter tightly, careful of his injuries. Tony watched over Peter's shoulder as the policemen were escorting a handcuffed Magnus out of the building.

_'__Enjoy prison, monster,' _he thought with vitriol. Part of him wished that he had actually shot Magnus in the few moments before the police had joined them in the room. Another part of him was reassured by the fact that that man was probably never going to see daylight again.

Any way you sliced it, he was out of Peter's life for good.

And that was more than enough.

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Thanks for sticking with me through the whole journey! I appreciate all your feedback!


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